NSF Workshop on Future Scientific Instruments for Alloys, Amorphous, and Composite Materials Research

November 7-8, 2022

The University of Chicago

David Rubenstein Forum

Drs. Shirley Meng (UoC), Andrew Minor (UCB & LBNL) and Sarbajit Banerjee (TAMU) are organizing a workshop at the University of Chicago’s Rubenstein Forum on November 7-8th to identify the critical gaps, essential needs, and emerging opportunities in instrumentation and infrastructure required to keep the US at the forefront of Alloys, Amorphous and Composite materials research. This is one of the three such workshops in a series entitled “From Atoms to Matter – Instrumentation and Infrastructure to Accelerate the Materials Development Continuum” sponsored by NSF DMR.

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IBA 2019 (Mar 3-8, 2019)

Women in STEM

The 13th US－CHINA Electric Vehicle and Battery Technology Information Exchange – April 8-10, 2018

“Ceramics for Energy” Workshop – June 3rd (Fri) and 4th (Sat half-day), 2016

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Ceramics for Energy Workshop Agenda Final-page-003

2014 Professional Development Workshop in Ceramics

Time September 4th Thursday	Activity	Description
8:30 am	Continental Breakfast	Informal discussions and networking
9:00 am	Welcome Remarks	PI Meng
9.10am	Introduction	Ceramics program director Dr. Madsen
9.30am	NSF Sustainability Overview	Dr.Gregory Rorrer
10:00 am	Morning break
10:15 am	Session 1 Panel I	Dr. Dillon: Individual heterojunction nanowires and their performance as photocatalysts
12:15 pm	Lunch	On site lunch for discussions and networking
1:30 pm	ENG IIP	Dr. Shashank Division of Industrial Innovation & Partnerships (ENG/IIP)
2:00 pm	Session II Panel II	Xueyan Song: Engineering the energy interconversion properties of oxide thermoelectric materials
4:00 pm	Afternoon Break
4:15 pm	Other Faculty	Discussion on the future direction of ceramics research
6:15 pm	End of formal sessions
6:30 pm	Dinner	Onsite dinner for informal discussions and networking
Time September 5th Friday	Activity	Description
8:00 am	Continental Breakfast	Informal discussions and networking
9:00 am	DMR Overview	Dr. Mary E Galvin-Donoghue
10:00 am	Session III Panel III	Liping Huang: Examining the role of elasticity in strengthening glasses by in situ light scattering
12.00pm	Lunch	On site lunch for discussions and networking
1:30 pm	Session IV	Materials Genome Initiative
2:30 pm	Adjourn

Three NSF CAREER awardees in Ceramics Program:

Dr. Shen Dillon is an Assistant Professor in Materials Science and Engineering at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Shen received his Bachelor’s degree and Doctorate of Philosophy in Materials Science and Engineering from Lehigh University in 2002 and 2007. Following his graduation in 2007, Dr. Dillon went to work as a Research Associate at Carnegie Mellon University and Visiting Professor at Lehigh University. At Carnegie Mellon, the focus of his work was three-dimensional characterization of microstructures in order to obtain data critical to understanding microstructural evolution. Shen spent the 2008 academic year as a Visiting Research Scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology working on materials for energy storage, before joining UIUC as a faculty member. As part of his CAREER program, Shen will quantitatively establish relationships between properties of individual heterojunction nanowires and their performance as photocatalysts. His approach includes in-situ transmission electron microscopy (TEM) to quantify the rate of photocatalytic gas evolution at individual nanostructures, ex-situ characterization to extend the structural and chemical information, and electrical measurements to obtain photoconductivity and relaxation data. This work will help to optimize high-efficiency, low-cost heterojunction photocatalysts that might lead toward new approaches to enhancing photocatalytic efficiency and new experimental methods for studying photochemistry at the nanometer scale.

Dr. Xueyan Song is an assistant professor in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering of West Virginia University, Morgantown. Dr. Song received her Ph.D. from Zhejiang University China. She did her postdoctoral research in Departemento de Engenharia de Materiais, Instituto Superior Tecnico, Lisboa, Portugal and became a research associate in University of Wisconsin Madison in 2003. Xueyan’s CAREER project aims to optimize, through nanoscale engineering approaches, the energy interconversion properties of the p-type oxide thermoelectric materials. Her approach includes doping of the lattice to enhance the electrical transport properties as well as the simultaneous insertion of nanoscale-sized inclusions to reduce the thermal conductivity. This research ultimately will serve to improve thermoelectric materials for waste heat recovery.

Dr. Liping Huang is an assistant professor in the Department Materials Science and Engineering in Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Dr. Huang received her Ph.D. from University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign in 2004, did her postdoctoral work at the University of Michigan and North Carolina State University before joining the faculty at RPI in 2008. She won the Norbert J. Kreidl Award, the highest honor bestowed upon a student by the Glass and Optical Materials Division of the American Ceramic Society, in 2003. Dr. Huang has published many articles and given numerous lectures at conferences and symposia. Dr. Huang’s CAREER program has proposed new concepts that use a combination of experimental and computational approaches to examine the role of elasticity in strengthening glasses. Ultimately her work may prove useful in the design of tailored glasses, and benefits may derive from her development of a structural probe for understanding materials under extreme conditions.

In partnership with the Institute of the Americas, LESC holds an annual meeting to help empower a group of students from the USA and countries across Latin America. Here are some pictures highlighting electrochemistry lessons and demonstrations from the last three meetings.

Summer Visit 2018

Summer Visit 2017

Summer Visit 2016

Summer Visit 2015

Summer Visit 2014

Summer Visit 2013

Summer Visit 2012

Iof America 2012

Summer Visit 2011

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Summer Visit 2010

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The ENLACE bi-national summer research program at UC San Diego aims to encourage the participation of high school students, college students, and researchers/teachers, in research in the sciences and engineering, while promoting cross-border friendships in the Baja California/San Diego region.

ENLACE 2019

(From left to right in the left-most photo are Shirley, Jessica (ENLACE student), Evelyn (ENLACE student) and Baharak)

ENLACE 2018

(From left to right, Shirley, Shen, Ricardo(ENLACE student), Axel (ENLACE student), Oeystein, and Will)

Super Science High School (SSH) is a designation awarded by the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) to upper secondary schools that prioritize science, technology, and mathematics. Lab visit is provided by LESC to groups of Japanese high school students who are interested in novel battery research works and facilities.

Summer 2019

Lab visit hosted by Ryo for students from Tachikawa high school in Tokyo

Future Leaders Summer Program is hosted by 21st Century China Center to educate high school students with the goal of guiding them to produce an action plan for resolving hard-hitting global challenges. The lab tour given by LESC offer them insight into the issues and opportunities surrounding batteries.

Summer 2019