News: Faculty

MIT lab shows off smart threads that can send messages, change color

June 20, 2017

“Fabric is the new software,” said Yoel Fink, an MIT professor of materials science and chief executive of Advanced Functional Fabrics of America. AFFOA is a public-private partnership founded last year, headquartered at MIT, and backed by more than $300 million from universities, corporations,…   more

AFFOA launches state-of-the-art facility for protoyping advanced fabrics

June 19, 2017

Just over a year after its funding award, a new center for the development and commercialization of advanced fabrics is officially opening its headquarters today in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and will be unveiling the first two advanced fabric products to be commercialized from the center’s work…   more

Liquid tin-sulfur compound shows thermoelectric potential

June 13, 2017

MIT researchers have developed a liquid thermoelectric device with a molten compound of tin and sulfur that can efficiently convert waste heat to electricity, opening the way to affordably transforming waste heat to power at high temperatures. …   more

Making Medallions at MIT

June 6, 2017

While MIT seniors are preparing to receive their diplomas, DMSE seniors are preparing to receive an additional graduation gift. Each year, the Department of Materials Science and Engineering gives its graduating students a bronze medallion of the MIT seal. These medallions are entirely…   more

Study offers guidance for targeting residual ovarian tumors

May 23, 2017

A new study conducted by Michael Cima explores ways to improve chemotherapy strategies for ovarian cancer, and how to determine which patients would be most likely to benefit from a new implantable device that could make intraperitoneal chemotherapy more bearable. "Most women diagnosed…   more

Making brain implants smaller could prolong their lifespan

May 17, 2017

Michael Cima has a new paper on brain implants and gliosis, which is scarring produced by the implant. This kind of implant is used for deep brain stimulation to treat Parkinson’s disease, among other uses, but about half of them fail within six months due to gliosis. The new study found…   more

2017 Faculty Promotions

May 15, 2017

Several DMSE faculty promotions will be taking effect starting July 1, 2017.  Congratulations to: Polina Anikeeva, Antoine Allanore, Niels Holten-Andersen, and Silvija Gradecak for their promotions this year! …   more

J-WAFS awards $1.4 million in third round of seed grant funding

May 11, 2017

Professor Antoine Allanore was awarded an Abdul Latif Jameel World Water and Food Security Lab (J-WAFS) seed grant for his project "Affordable Potassium Fertilizer from K Feldspar for Africa."  J-WAFS at MIT has announced its third round of seed grant funding to the MIT community. J‑WAFS…   more

Sadoway named AIST John Elliott Lecturer

May 9, 2017

Don Sadoway was honored with the John F. Elliott Lectureship Award by the Association for Iron and Steel Technology (AIST) at AISTech2017.  John F. Elliott Lectureship Award — Established in 1990, this honorary lectureship is designed to acquaint students and engineers…   more

High-temperature devices made from films that bend as they “breathe”

May 9, 2017

Carrying out maintenance tasks inside a nuclear plant puts severe strains on equipment, due to extreme temperatures that are hard for components to endure without degrading. Now, researchers at MIT and elsewhere have come up with a radically new way to make actuators that could be used in such…   more

MIT Awards Ceremony 2017

May 4, 2017

  Laya and Jerome B. Wiesner Student Art Awards: Rachel Osmundsen ‘ 17  Earll M. Murman Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Advising - Elsa Olivetti Bose Award for Excellence in Teaching…   more

National Academy of Sciences elects six MIT professors for 2017

May 3, 2017

Professor Klavs Jensen is among six MIT Faculty members who have been elected to the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) in recognition of their "distinguised and continuing achievements in original research." The group was among 84 new members and 21 new foreign associates elected to the NAS.…   more

Geoffrey Beach: Drawn to explore magnetism

April 24, 2017

Geoffrey Beach has been tinkering and building things most of his life, but it wasn’t until his undergraduate studies in physics that he zeroed in on the topic that has dominated his research ever since: the study of magnetism and how to control it. “There are many thousands of…   more

Not stuck on silicon

April 19, 2017

A new technique developed by Jeehwan Kim and a team of researchers may vastly reduce the overall cost of wafer technology and enable devices made from more exotic, higher-performing semiconductor materials than conventional silicon. The new method, reported today in Nature, uses graphene…   more

How some battery materials expand without cracking

April 13, 2017

A new paper from Yet-Ming Chiang in Nano Letters describes for the first time what happens in rechargeable lithium-ion and other battery electrodes when they expand and contract as the lithium ions move in and out during charging and discharging. This had been a mystery, since these materials…   more

MIT.nano has its first public showing

April 10, 2017

The brand new, state-of-the-art MIT.nano building had its first public showing recently. The new building promises to be an enormously influential toolbox for many MIT departments, especially DMSE. Faculty and other researchers are excited for its completion slated for 2018. Krystyn Van…   more

Juejun Hu receives Coble Award

April 6, 2017

Professor Juejun Hu was the winner of the Coble Award 2017! This award honors the late Professor Coble, whose lifelong mission was to enhance the achievement and advancement of young ceramic scientists. From the ACerS website: The award recognizes an outstanding scientist who is…   more

Researchers “iron out” graphene’s wrinkles

April 5, 2017

Jeehwan Kim has a PNAS paper in which he confirms that a technique he previously developed does indeed create single domain graphene, meaning graphene that uniformly conducts electrons.…   more