News

The MEM-C Seed awards for the 2024/2025 award period have been announced!

Exploratory Seed grants have been awarded to UW faculty across several departments to help nascent innovative materials research efforts obtain preliminary results. Prof. Mo Chen (MSE) is leading a collaboration with Prof. Mo Li (ECE, IRG-2) to investigate in-situ strain control in superconducting qubits. Prof. David Masiello (Chemistry) is working with Prof. Juan Carlos Idrobo (IRG-1 & IRG-2) and Prof. Di Xiao (IRG-2) to explore the topological state tomography in 2D quantum materials. Prof. Sara Mouradian (ECE) will probe electric field sensing at the quantum limit for materials science with their collaborators Prof. Alexandra Velian (IRG-2) and Prof. Mo Li (IRG-2). Prof. Doug Reed (Chemistry) is teaming up with Prof. Daniel Gamelin (IRG-1) to manipulate magnetic ordering in porous chromium-halide perovskites. Prof. Gerald Seidler (Physics) will research crystal-field and covalency effects in van der Waals metal-halide compounds using multi-modal X-Ray spectroscopy and will be joined in this effort by Prof. Daniel Gamelin (IRG-1) and Prof. Xiaosong Li (IRG-1).

Multidisciplinary Team grants have been awarded to UW materials-research teams in areas complementary to MEM-C’s current research profile. Prof. Julie Rorrer (ChemE) and Prof. Eleftheria Roumeli will pursue developing biomass-derived carbon supports for catalytic applications in waste plastic deconstruction and will be joined in this effort by Prof. Lilo Pozzo (IRG-1) along with collaborators from the University of Hawai’i, Prof. Robert Johnson (UH PREM) & Prof. Przemyslaw Dera (UH PREM). Prof. Zachary Sherman (ChemE) and Prof. David Bergsman (ChemE) will also be teaming up with Prof. Lilo Pozzo (IRG-1) and collaborators from UH, Joseph Brown (UH PREM) and Chrisy Xiyu Du (UH PREM), to test the autonomous inverse design of colloidal metasurfaces with targeted dielectric function. Finally, Prof. Shijing Sun (MechE) and Prof. Kevin Jamieson (CSE) will enhance MEM-C’s AI Core efforts with their project with Prof. Dianne Xiao (IRG-1) to develop an AI agent for energy-efficient inorganic synthesis.

Congratulations to the MEM-C Seed awardees! We are lucky to have you join us in our materials science pursuits!

MEM-C research has been featured in a few recent news stories! MEM-C’s PREM awards with UCF and UH were featured in the Department of Chemistry’s news in a feature “NSF awards UW partners $13.6M to broaden access in the sciences“. UCF Today also had a feature on the PREM award “UCF Awarded $4.2 Million Grant for Research and Student Education in Quantum Materials“. Prof. Kai-Mei Fu (IRG-1 co-Lead) was highlighted in the UW News Perspectives piece “The Quantum Quest“.

Updated: 11/21/2024

We are pleased to announce a call for proposals for 2024 UW MEM-C Materials Research Seed Grants, open to all members of the UW materials research community. The proposal deadline* is November 27, 2024 at 5:00 PM PST. For a copy of the full MEM-C Seed Grant call with submission instructions, UW researchers should contact their departments who all received the full details via email from MEM-C Director, Daniel Gamelin.

An applicant must hold a faculty-level appointment at the University of Washington to serve as Principal Investigator (PI). An applicant may serve on only one proposal as PI, and as an investigator (co-PI or PI) on no more than 2. All proposed research must be clearly distinct from ongoing externally funded research and must involve the collaboration of two or more UW research groups. Current MEM-C senior investigators may not receive MEM-Seed funds but can be listed as unfunded collaborators.

MEM-Seed grants are intended to provide short-term funding to help initiate exciting collaborative materials-research projects on campus, with the longer-term goal of supporting new research directions that will expand MEM-C’s research activities beyond their existing scope. The MEM-Seed program aims to augment the Center’s focus areas: IRG-1, IRG-2, AI Core, our broader impacts efforts, and our PREM activities with UCF and UH. There are two types of Seed Grants: Multidisciplinary Team Grants and Exploratory Seed Grants.

If there are any questions about the program, contact MEM-C’s Grant Manger, Kelly Olenyik ([email protected]).

* Note, that because the due date on this news post was originally listed as 12/02/2024, proposals will be accepted until that date without any penalty, if needed.

MEM-C IRG-2 gathered last Friday to hold an AI Core roundtable. Students and postdocs from 7 groups presented lightning, pitch talks to brainstorm ways machine learning could assist in critical breakthroughs in material science research. The roundtable was co-hosted by Ting Cao, Assistant Professor UW MSE & Associate Vice Provost for Research Cyberinfrastructure, and Kevin Jamieson, Associate Professor UW Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering. Both Prof. Cao & Prof. Jamieson received MEM-C seed awards in 2023 for MEM-C AI Core research.

The lightning talks covered a wide range of MEM-C IRG-2 research areas. The Cao group proposed leveraging large atomic models to investigate more complex multiscale moiré structures. The Xu group pitched the idea of using ML’s image segmentation capabilities to accelerate flake identification and layer determination for 2D materials. Similarly, the Yankowitz group discussed ways ML could be incorporated into STM, and the Idrobo group suggested ideas for ML/AI integration for STEM. The group also heard from the Chu, Velian and Eley groups. The session ended with an overview of the Jamieson group’s research areas and a general discussion about next steps.

MEM-C is thrilled to be welcoming 7 students to the 2024-20425 Academic-Year Research Accelerator Research Experience for Undergraduates Program (AYRA REU). These students applied and were accepted to participate in the program for up to two academic quarters. They represent a variety of UW majors from Chemical Engineering, Chemistry, MSE, Physics, Biochemistry and Aeronautical & Astronautical Engineering. There are sophomores, juniors and seniors participating in the program this year. All of the students have one thing in common: they want an opportunity to do undergraduate materials research. MEM-C is lucky to have such an eager group, ready to participate in our research!

The Pozzo group (IRG-1) will be hosting two AYRA participants, both majoring in chemical engineering, and their research project will focus on implementing an ad-hoc accelerated materials synthesis platform for studying the cooperative synthesis and assembly of ultrasmall antimony (III) sulfide nanoparticles using the Jubilee platform. The Velian group (IRG-2) will be hosting a AYRA participant who is majoring in biochemistry and their MEM-C research will utilize clusters as building blocks for the bottom-up synthesis of materials is a way to generate new materials with tailored properties involving the crystallizations of salts with an attempt to form superatomic crystals. The Mo Li group (IRG-2) will be hosting an AYRA participant majoring in aeronautical & astronautical engineering who worked on MEM-C research in our previous award. Their research will include fabricating surface acoustic wave devices that can sense pressure and develop a procedure to transfer these sensors onto curved surfaces. Other participants are being hosted by the Gamelin, Yankowitz, and Cobden groups this year.

The AYRA program could not be possible without the NSF support, our incredible graduate students who mentor these undergraduates, and the faculty who host them. We’re looking forward to getting to know these AYRA participants and helping them gain research experience with MEM-C!

On September 11^th, MEM-C hosted its 2^nd annual “MEM-C Day” on UW-Seattle’s campus. During the event, MEM-C had the pleasure of hosting 23 students and 9 parents from the greater-Seattle homeschooling community for a day of hands-on science experiments. A group of 17 graduate students from the Cossairt, Golder, Reed, and Xiao labs led the students through interactive activities that showcased how nanoscale structures facilitate macroscopic properties, including color and long-range structural integrity. This outreach event was hosted in a UW Department of Chemistry teaching laboratory, which offered these young students the experience of navigating within a real lab space.

The day’s programming started with the Golder group teaching students how to prepare polymer networks that, with enough stirring, turn into bouncy balls. The elasticity of the bouncy balls changes by altering the ratios of various ingredients. 

Next up was the Cossiart lab, whose members helped the students prepare gold nanoparticles by simply combining two ingredients in water. Unlike bulk gold we are used to seeing, these nanoparticles appear pink or purple in solution, telling us about the size of these individual nanoparticles and how these particles interact with light. 

The Reed lab then had the students explore how light interacts with materials, depending on the thickness of that material. Students were able to design their own bookmarks that would then have a thin layer of clear nail polish deposited on top. Because of the way this ultra-thin layer of nail polish reflects light, an iridescent rainbow is deposited on top of the students’ creations.

To finish off a full day of science, the Xiao lab worked with the students to build models of porous molecules out of marshmallows and toothpicks to learn about the crystal structure of materials. To further understand materials at the nanoscale, students then wrote messages with “invisible” ink. Upon heating up their seemingly blank papers with a blow-dryer, their message would appear as the water molecules left the ink structure and the newly colored structure would reveal itself. 

A MEM-C Day parent sent this follow-up note: “Thank you so much for hosting this event. It really jump sparked my son into loving science even more. On the way home he ordered materials so he could recreate some of the experiments you did.”

MEM-C Day was organized by Prof. Matthew Golder, Prof. Andrea Carroll, MEM-C Education and Training Fellow Eden Tzanetopoulos, a Ph.D. student in the Gamelin lab, and Matt Elardo and Lucy Miller, both Ph.D. students in the Golder lab. We’d like to thank the volunteers, students, and parents for making this year’s MEM-C Day such a success! 

MEM-C caught the ferry to San Juan Island and headed to UW’s Friday Harbor Labs (FHL) this week for the All Hands meeting and retreat. The meeting was held September 4^th through the 6^th and there were over 50 MEM-C participants in attendance: 30 graduate students, 6 postdoctoral scholars, and 20 faculty members. The meeting included poster sessions, research talks by students and postdocs, education and outreach meetings, professional development, and strategy sessions. Most importantly, the retreat carved out lots of time for MEM-C participants to get to know each other in order to inspire future research collaborations!

Several honored guests join this year’s meeting. UH’s MRE-C PREM Director, Prof. Godwin Severa, Sustainability Thrust Lead, Prof. Przemek Dera, and AI Thrust Lead, Prof. Joseph Brown, joined their MEM-C collaboators at All Hands. Their effor to make the trip also provided the opportunity to have PREM-specific strategy sessions and presentations. Additionally, MEM-C External Advisory Board member and WSU faculty Prof. Kevin Kittilstved traveled across the state to attend the entire meeting. The meeting also provided the opportunity for MEM-C’s evaluator team, led by Erin Carll from UW CERSE, to introduce the evaluation plan to the entire center and launch the first-year internal assesment survey.

Another special aspect of this year’s meeting was a welcome and information session given by FHL Director Megan Dethier followed by FHL docent-led tours of Friday Harbor Lab’s marine biology facilities. Also, the Outreach Director at FHL, Michelle Herko, and MEM-C Education Director, Andrea Carroll, had a meeting during the week for information and best practices sharing. This allowed the MEM-C All Hands meeting to be more place-based and inspired all kinds of wonder and appreciation for the land, critters and people that make FHL such a wonderful place.

The NSF announced today that UW MEM·C’s PREM awards with the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa (UHM) and the University of Central Florida (UCF) are 2 of only 11 institutions nationwide selected for six-year PREM funding in the latest round of competition, placing UW, UHM and UCF in rare and distinguished company! UHM and UCF are each the primary awardees of a six-year, $4.2M award and UW is a subawardee on each award. These PREM awards are focused on expanding participation and access to materials science-focused facilities, education, training and careers at minority-serving institutions. MEM·C is so proud of our partners and collaborators! Their hard work at leading these PREMs is a huge benefit to all of our institutions.

At UCF, the PREM award will fund the Center for Quantum Material Innovations and Educational Excellence (CQ-MIEE, DMR-2424976) and the MEM-C faculty joining that effort include Ting Cao (UW’s CQ-MIEE Director), Daniel Gamelin, Xiaosong Li, Andrea Carroll, Jiun-Haw Chu, Brandi Cossairt, Jim De Yoreo, Juan Carlos Idrobo, Alexandra Velian and Matthew Yankowitz. CQ-MIEE’s research focus will be quantum material synthesis for energy-efficient communications, novel chemicals and new medicines. Each year, MEM·C will host visiting undergraduates and graduate students from UCF to do summer research alongside our students and faculty.

At UHM, the PREM award will fund the Materials Research and Education Consortium (MRE-C, DMR-2424949) and the MEM-C faculty joining that effort include Lilo Pozzo (UW’s MRE-C Director), Daniel Gamelin, Xiaosong Li, Andrea Carroll, Brandi Cossairt, Jim De Yoreo, Dianne Xiao, Scott Dunham, Juan Carlos Idrobo, Stefan Stoll, and Alexandra Velian. Beyond just the limits of MEM-C, this PREM collaboration expands to other UW faculty including Julie Rorrer, Eleftheria Roumeli, Zach Sherman and Vincent Holmberg. MRE-C’s research focus will be clean energy and sustainability solutions for challenges facing Hawaii, including reliance on imported fuels for electricity and transportation, resource and waste management, soil erosion, and ocean contamination exacerbated by climate change. Each year, MEM·C will host visiting undergraduates and graduate students from UCF to do summer research alongside our students and faculty.

We look forward to 6 more fruitful years of PREM activities at UW!

MEM-C is lucky to be hosting a large group of visiting researchers at UW Seattle this summer!

Last week, our group of MEM-C REU students, UCF PREM visiting student, and UH PREM visiting students arrived for their 9 week summer research experiences. There are 17 total undergrads in this summer’s group, and they are already off to a busy start with orienting to their host research groups and journal clubs. This week they are all attending the ACS Colloid and Surface Science Symposium which is being hosted here at UW Seattle.

Prof. Remi Beaulac from Swarthmore College arrived earlier this month. Remi is joining us as a MEM-C Visiting Scholar and is conducting research with the Gamelin Group. He is familiar with the group and this area since he did his postdoctoral work here at UW!

This week our Research Experience for Teachers (RET) participant arrived to campus. Our RET is a K-12 teacher from Honolulu and will be very busy these next 3 weeks with our Education Director Andrea Carroll as they work together on a project focused on integrating of Hawai’ian culture and community into the contexts for the outreach activities so that, in partnership with the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa, NanoCamp can be extended to the local youth community in and around Honolulu.

Next week, we are getting ready to host our two-week NanoCamp here in Seattle in partnership with UW Youth and Teen Programs. And we’ll be joined by a high school intern from our UH PREM partners who will be working on a project to get teens more excited about nanoscience.

Three MEM-C faculty have recieved big awards this spring!

• Brandi Cossairt was recently named an American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). Brandi is among 502 newly elected fellows from around the world, who are recognized for their “scientifically and socially distinguished achievements” in science and engineering.
• Dianne Xiao has been recognized with a Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar award. Dianne is one of 18 faculty members honored this year nationwide, who are awarded for having “created an outstanding independent body of scholarship, and are deeply committed to education.”
• Xiaosong Li is this year’s awardee of the ACS 2024 Jack Simons Award in Theoretical Physical Chemistry. Each year, only a single ACS faculty member is given this distinction for “outstanding contributions in theoretical chemistry.”