July 2007

Peter Jordan Kwok has been awarded 3rd place in the Frey Prize competition on his thesis entitled "Development and Characterization of a Process for Removing Steel Placeholders from Titanium Foams".  Peter will receive $5000 and his advisor will receive $2000. Faculty Advisor: David Dunand & Graduate student mentor: Scott Oppenheimer.

"The Margaret and Muir Frey Memorial Prize for Innovation and Creativity is awarded for the best innovative or creative-integrative 'Capstone' project required or acceptable for an undergraduate degree in the McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science."

Professor David Dunand and Peter Kwok

June 2007
This is the inaugural year for the two Hilliard awards that recognize outstanding achievement by our undergraduate students. 

This year the John E. Hilliard Awards for Undergraduate Research and Design were awarded to:

Derek Hsen Dai Hsu for his project, " Microanalysis and Modeling of TiNi-based Shape Memory Alloys,"
 Faculty advisor:  Gregory Olson & Graduate student mentor: Matt Bender

Peter Jordan Kwok for his project, "Development and Characterization of a Process for Removing Steel Placeholders from Titanium Foams," 

Faculty Advisor: David Dunand & Graduate student mentor: Scott Oppenheimer

Peter Jordan Kwok, Peter Voorhees, Derek Hsen Dai Hsu

May 2007
Six current MatSci PhD candidates have been awarded national fellowships for September 2007. Four students received National Science Foundation NSF Graduate Research Fellowship and two received the National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate (NDSEG) Fellowship.

April 2007
Mark Hersam has been selected to receive the 2007 Young Alumni Achievement Award from the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The award will be presented at the ECE Distinguished Alumni Awards Banquet in Urbana on September 28th, 2007.

Lincoln Lauhon has received a 2007 Sloan Research Fellowhip Award. more

U.S. News and World Report has ranked our department second in their "America's Best Graduate Schools 2008 - Engineering Specialties: Materials". more

March 2007
The Chronicle of Higher Education has ranked our department second among materials science departments in their Top Research Universities in the 2005 Faculty Scholarly Productivity Index. more

January 2007
MatSci Welcomes New Faculty Member
Prof. Chris Wolverton comes to Northwestern from Ford Motor Company, where he led the Hydrogen Storage and Nanoscale Modeling group at the Ford Research and Innovation Center.  He received his PhD degree in physics from the University of California at Berkeley.  After completing his PhD, he performed postdoctoral work and was subsequently a staff scientist at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL).

Prof. Wolverton's research interests are centered on computational materials science, and specifically atomic-scale first-principles electronic structure methods.  He is interested in a variety of materials problems with a focus on materials for alternative energies and sustainability (hydrogen, batteries, light-weight metals, fuel cells, thermoelectrics).  Also, he has worked extensively on methodologies for linking atomistic and microstructural length scales.  Current topics of interest include the discovery of novel hydrogen storage materials, phase transformations in metallic and ceramic alloys, microstructural evolution during aging, and the theoretical prediction of new materials.

November 2006
Mike Meshii has won the ASM Albert White Distinguished Teacher Award from ASM International for 2008.

June 2006
Prof. Mark Hersam has won the Peter Mark Memorial Award from the American Vacuum Society.  It recognizes outstanding theoretical or experimental work by a young scientist or engineer. 

May 2006
Prof. Monica Olvera de la Cruz was elected to the Solid State Sciences Committee of the National Research Council. more

November, 2005
Prof. Samuel Stupp has been named to the Scientific American 50. "This award honors 50 individuals, teams, companies, and other organizations whose accomplishments in research, business, or policymaking during 2004-2005 demonstrate outstanding technological leadership".

Prof. David Seidman has been selected to receive the Albert Sauveur Achievement Award for 2006 from ASM International, one of their highest awards.

Prof. Bob Chang named Distinguished Teaching Scholar by NSF. more

April 2005
Undergrad Tiffany Ziebell was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship and will be spending next year at the Université de Rouen working in their atom-probe tomography group.

March 2005
Mark Hersam, assistant professor of materials science and engineering, has been awarded a Sloan Fellowship.

(New York, March 3, 2005) -- The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation announced today that 116 outstanding young scientists, mathematicians, and economists have been selected to receive the prestigious Sloan Research Fellowship, the oldest fellows program in the United States. The new Sloan Fellows are engaged in research at the frontiers of physics, chemistry, computational and evolutionary molecular biology, computer science, economics, mathematics and neuroscience, and are faculty members at 54 colleges and universities in the U.S. and Canada.

“The Sloan Research Fellowships were created by Alfred P. Sloan, Jr. in 1955 to provide crucial and flexible funds to outstanding researchers early in their academic careers,” said Ralph E. Gomory, President, Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. “Through the years, these fellowships have helped the research careers of their recipients, and we are very proud to be associated with their achievements.”

In the 50 years that the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation has been awarding research fellowships, 32 Sloan Fellows have gone on to win Nobel Prizes and hundreds have received other prestigious awards and honors. With the current awards, the Foundation has spent over $108 million for support of more than 4,000 young researchers. Candidates for the fellowships are nominated by department chairs and other senior scholars familiar with their talents.

Grants of $45,000 for a two-year period are administered by each Fellow’s institution. Once chosen, Fellows are free to pursue whatever lines of inquiry are of most interest to them, and they are permitted to employ fellowship funds in a wide variety of ways to further their research aims. The Foundation believes this flexibility is often of great value to scientists who are at a pivotal stage in establishing their own independent research projects. For a complete listing of winners, see http://www.sloan.org/programs/fellowshiplist.shtml.

Floor Hockey Champions!
The MatSci floor hockey team battled a field of 23 teams to become the 2005 IM Co-rec Floor Hockey champions after defeating SigEp/Theta in the finals on Thursday, March 3.

Back Row: Nate Catron, Tim Sargeant (Captain), Chris Booth-Morrison, Neil Kidner (Keeper), Dave Falk, John DeFouw
Front Row: Liz St. John, Leta Woo, Jessica Lensch, Mariana Bertoni, Marsha Van Dalen, Kristen Pappacena
Not Pictured: Marcus Young

Kudos to the MatSci I White League team for both making it to the semi-final rounds of the playoffs.

Yip Wah Chung has been named Fellow of the Society of Tribologists and Lubrication Engineers.

Lincoln Lauhon has been given a National Science Foundation CAREER award.

Kathy Faber was elected the President Elect and then will serve as President of the American Ceramics Society. She serves as President Elect in 2005, and as President in 2006.

Mark Hersam has been given a 2005 Sloan Foundation Fellowship.

Prof. John Torkelson was elected to a three-year-term (2005-2008) as Member-at-Large to the Executive Committee of the Division of Polymer Physics of the American Physical Society

Prof. Katherine Faber has been appointed to the Scientific Advisory Committee of the Advanced Photon Source at Argonne beginning next year.

Prof. Julia Weertman will be giving the Stanford S. and Beverly P.Penner Distinguished Lecture in Spring, 2005, at the University of California at San Diego.

Prof. David Seidman has been appointed an Expert Consulting Member of the Scientific, Technical, and Pedagogical Division, Department of Physics, French Ministry of Education, Higher Learning and Research, Paris, France.

Prof. Peter Voorhees has been selected to give the Van Horn lecture series at Case-Western Reserve University. He was also elected Fellow of the American Physical Society for fundamental contributions to the theory of kinetics and thermodynamics of morphological change.

Prof. Sam Stupp was an invited discussant to NIH-NSF meeting on the interface of physical and life sciences, "Bridging the Sciences" - November 2004, the Stein-Bayer Seminar Lecturer, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, November 2004, the Sir Edward Youde Memorial Fund Visiting Professorship, Hong Kong, February 2005, the NSF Distinguished Lecturer in Mathematical and Physical Sciences, April 05, the Jean Perrin Lecture, Centre de Recherche Paul Pascal - CNRS, Paris/Bordeaux France, September 2005, and was selected to Chair US-Japan Exchange on BioNanotechnology by the NSF.

Prof. John Torkelson has been awarded the 2004 Charles M.A. Stine Award from the Materials Engineering and Science Division of the American Institute of Chemical Engineering.

July 2004
Prof. Katherine T. Faber has received the Charles L. Hosler Alumni Scholar Medal from the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences at Pennsylvania State University. The award recognizes the very highest levels of intellectual achievement or academic service attained by those educated in the College.

Prof. L. Catherine Brinson has received the first Jerome B. Cohen Professorship in Engineering.

February 12, 2004
New Graduate School Awards; June MFA/PhD Hooding Ceremony

The Graduate School announces the establishment of two new awards, one for faculty and one for staff, the winners to be announced spring quarter 2004. Nominations for both awards, to be submitted by students in post-baccalaureate programs administered through The Graduate School, are due to The Graduate School Friday, April 9, 2004.

The first annual Clarence Ver Steeg Graduate Faculty Award, named for Professor Clarence Ver Steeg, Northwestern University Professor Emeritus in History and Dean of The Graduate School from 1975 to 1986, will recognize two Graduate Faculty members for excellence in work with doctoral students. For a more complete description of award criteria and nomination procedures, see the Graduate Faculty Award page. For an online nomination form see www.northwestern.edu/graduate/current/cvsfacultyaward.doc.

The Clarence Ver Steeg Graduate Staff Award will recognize a professional, administrative, or support staff member for outstanding academic, organizational, or administrative support of graduate students. For a more complete description of award criteria and procedures, see the Graduate Staff Award page. For an online nomination form, see www.northwestern.edu/graduate/current/cvsstaffaward.doc.

We in The Graduate School are very excited about these awards and hope that you and your faculty and students will be too. Thank you very much for helping to communicate this message to your students.

Richard I. Morimoto
Dean of The Graduate School and
Associate Provost for Graduate Education

February 4, 2004
Vinayak P. Dravid was named a fellow of the American Ceramic Society.

February 4, 2004
Matsci Undergrads Place First in TMS Design Competition
The Materials Processing and Manufacturing Division of TMS is pleased to announce the decision to award Erhan Altinoglu, Jennifer Bolos, and Nora Colligan, from Northwestern University, first place in the 2004 TMS/MPMD Student Design Competition for their project, "Noburnium: Oxidation Resistant Nb Superalloy."

The award is presented to outstanding undergraduate students majoring in materials during the 2002-2003 academic year.

Presentation of the award will take place at the TMS 2004 Annual Meeting & Exhibition, Charlotte, North Carolina, March 14-18, 2004.
Source: Diane Scheuring, TMS Membership & Marketing Coordinator

January 22, 2004
Scientists grow neurons using nanostructures
Samuel Stupp, professor of materials science and engineering, discusses his team's recent work on synthetic molecules that promote neuron growth.
http://www.mccormick.northwestern.edu/news/showarticle.php?id=90

January 7, 2004
John Torkelson was awarded the Wiley Journal of Polymer Science Polymer Physics Award for 2004.

Department Welcomes Three New Courtesy Faculty

Three colleagues, Wesley Burghardt from Chemical and Biological Engineering, Catherine Brinson from Mechanical Engineering, and Phillip Messersmith from Biomedical Engineering have been awarded courtesy appointments in Materials Science this year.

Wesley Burghardt’s research interests are in polymer science, rheology, and non-Newtonian fluid mechanics. Current work includes synchrotron X-ray analysis of flow behavior of ordered polymeric and self-assembling fluids. more

Catherine Brinson’s interests lie in the study of advanced materials systems. The objective of her research is to develop new methods to characterize and model material behavior at scales spanning the range of molecular interactions, micromechanical and macroscopic behavior. more

 

Phillip Messersmith’s group seeks to utilize biological strategies to develop new biomaterials and tissue engineering approaches for the repair, replacement, or augmentation of human tissue. Current research is focused in three main areas: biomimetic/bio-inspired materials, novel adhesive biomaterials, antifouling surfaces, and nanoscience/nano-technology. more

December 26, 2003
Julia Weertman has received the ASM Gold Medal for 2005 from the American Society of Medals.

December 19, 2003
AtomWorks Alert
Northwestern University scientists detect molecules with tiny cantilevers
Vinayak Dravid, professor of materials science and engineering, and his work on the nanoscale movements of cantilevers are profiled.

December 12, 2003
Wes Burghardt has been named a fellow of the American Physical Society.
Mark Hersam was elected to the board of the Nanometer-scale Science and Technology Division of the AVS.
Bruce Wessels has been elected a fellow of the American Physical Society.

December 4, 2003
Pioneer Press
Evanstonians Catherine Brinson, professor of mechanical engineering, Kenneth Forbus, professor of computer science, Robert Linsenmeier, professor of biomedical engineering, and Peter Dinda, assistant professor of computer science are lauded for recent honors.

Observer, November 13, 2003
Marks receives international honors
Tobin J. Marks, Ipatieff Professor of Catalytic Chemistry and professor of materials science and engineering, has been awarded the Sir Edward Frankland Prize of the British Royal Society of Chemistry and the Karl Ziegler Prize of the Gasellschaft Deutscher Chemiker.
http://www.northwestern.edu/observer/issues/2003-11-13/marks.html

November 12, 2003
Chicago Sun-Times
NU engineers push computer chip limits
Mark Hersam, assistant professor of materials science and engineering, and his research team have become the first to measure a unique nanoelectronic effect -- called resonant tunneling -- through individual molecules mounted directly on silicon.
http://www.suntimes.com/output/tech/cst-nws-nano12.html

November 11, 2003
Molecular electronic device shows promise
Mark Hersam, assistant professor of materials science and engineering, and his research team have become the first to measure a unique nanoelectronic effect -- called resonant tunneling -- through individual molecules mounted directly on silicon.
http://www.mccormick.northwestern.edu/news/showarticle.cfm?id=88

October 30, 2003
Observer
Emeriti keep in touch with University life
Julia Weertman, Walter P. Murphy Professor Emeritus of Materials Science and Engineering, is mentioned.

University recognizes 27 faculty with emeritus status
D. Lynn Johnson, Walter P. Murphy Professor Emeritus of Materials Science and Engineering, Masahiro Meshii, John Evans Professor Emeritus of Materials Science and Engineering, and Edwin C. Rossow, professor emeritus of civil and environmental engineering, are mentioned.
http://www.northwestern.edu/observer/issues/2003-10-30/emeritus.html