Tue, 04/09/2019 | Department of Materials Science and Engineering

Faculty from the materials-intensive departments at the College of Engineering — Materials Science, Mechanical, and Chemical — have partnered on a project to attract and retain more students underrepresented in engineering. 

Fri, 04/05/2019 | CityU NewsCentre

Professor Emeritus Alex Jen has been elected Fellow of European Academy of Sciences.

Mon, 03/11/2019 | Materials Science and Engineering

Congrats to AMP student Varun Kao, who won the "Most Enthusiastic Entrepreneur" prize at the 2019 Buerk Center of Entrepreneurship and Foster School of Business' Science & Technology Showcase. 

Mon, 02/25/2019 | UW News

Xiaodong Xu, Boeing Distinguished Professor of MSE and physics, leads a team of researchers who have developed a new system to trap individual excitons. Excitons are promising candidates for developing new quantum technologies that could revolutionize the computation and communications fields.

Fri, 01/18/2019 | UW Today

MSE associate professor J. Devin MacKenzie has received an award from the US Energy Department to advance research and development in photovoltaic materials.

Fri, 01/04/2019

Sean Ghods was awarded the Graduate School's 2018 Distinguished Thesis Award in Mathematics, Physical Sciences and Engineering. Ghods argues the characteristics of fish scales can be emulated to improve the quality of engineered protective materials.

Fri, 01/04/2019 | Institute for Nano-engineered Systems

Peter Pauzauskie, associate professor of materials science and engineering, joined the Institute for Nano-Engineered Systems (NanoES) in spring 2018. His research group synthesizes atomically-precise nanoscale materials to understand and harness their optical and electronic properties for potential applications in next-generation quantum sensors, advanced biomedical devices, and solid-state laser refrigeration.

Fri, 12/07/2018 | UW News

Led by grad student Jiajun Chen, a new collaborative study could provide engineers new design rules for creating microelectronics, membranes and tissues, and open up better production methods for new materials.

Wed, 11/28/2018

MSE senior Anton Resing has been awarded a Washington Research Foundation Fellowship. Under the guidance of Professor Christine Luscombe, Resing will investigate semiconducting polymers as a solution for expanding solar technology.

Wed, 11/07/2018 | Clean Energy Institute

MSE associate professor J. Devin MacKenzie has been awarded a grant for a revolutionary printer.

Mon, 08/06/2018 | Columns Magazine

For the new Nanoengineering & Sciences Building, Dennis Edmondson, ’80, ’13, designed a stud that combined the thermal features of wood with the strength of steel. 

Dennis Edmondson earned a master's degree in MSE and a dual PhD in MSE & Nanotechnology.

Mon, 05/21/2018 | UW News

Months after Hurricane Maria, thousands in rural Puerto Rico still lack electricity. In partnership with local communities, UW engineers and public health scientists are working to restore their power.

Fri, 05/04/2018 | UW College of Engineering

Tuesday is the recipient of the Professional Staff Award for excellence, impact and dedication to the labs in the MSE department. Xiaodong has been selected to receive the Faculty Research Award for excellence, impact and dedication to innovative research. Congrats to both! Please join faculty, students and staff to honor all recipients on Thursday, May 24 at 3:30 in the HUB South Ballroom.

Thu, 05/03/2018 | UW News

In a breakthrough that may revolutionize cloud computing technologies and consumer electronics, a UW-led team used stacks of ultrathin materials to exert unprecedented control over the flow of electrons. The atomically thin magnetic device could enable data storage at a greater density and improved energy efficiency over current technology. "With the explosive growth of information, the challenge is how to increase the density of data storage while reducing operation energy," said corresponding author Xiaodong Xu, who is a professor in UW MSE and Physics and a faculty researcher at the UW Clean Energy Institute. "The combination of both works points to the possibility of engineering atomically thin magnetic memory devices with energy consumption orders of magnitude smaller than what is currently achievable." The study was published online May 3 in the journal Science.

Thu, 04/12/2018

Researchers at the University of Washington have designed a convenient and natural product that uses proteins to rebuild tooth enamel and treat dental cavities. The method takes inspiration from the body’s own natural tooth-forming proteins and is detailed in a new paper by lead author Mehmet Sarikaya (MSE, ChemE).

Fri, 04/06/2018 | Mental Floss

For their article, "10 Facts About Lithium," the Mental Floss website turned to MSE chair and professor Jihui Yang. Yang is quoted on the future of lithium in electric vehicle batteries, particularly on goals to double the range of electronic vehicles today. As noted in the article, "Yang and his collaborators aim to replace the graphite currently used in the negative electrode of lithium-ion batteries with lithium metal."

Wed, 02/21/2018 | Langmuir

GEMSEC researchers, in collaboration with colleagues at Tokyo Institute of Technology, in Japan, examined the self-organization behavior of the genetically engineered docdecapeptides on graphene surface using electrical bias. Supported by NSF's Materials Genome Initiative (MGI), research out of GEMSEC Labs aims for practical implementations in biosensing, bioelectronics and biophotonics applications and next generation biology-guided, solid state devices in future technology and medicine.

Authors are Takakazu Seki, Christopher R. So,* Tamon R. Page*, David Starkebaum,* Yuhei Hayamizu, and Mehmet Sarikaya*. (*GEMSEC members).

Tue, 02/06/2018 | Times Higher Education

Research into renewable energy has taken an exciting new direction in recent years with new lost-cost high-efficiency solar cells made from perovskites. Methylammonium lead perovskite solar cell research heads a list of the most prominent scientific topics on SciVal from 2014-2017, and UW MSE Professor Emeritus Alex Jen is listed as one of the top ten most productive researchers in the field worldwide. The University of Washington is the number four global institution publishing the most highly cited perovskite solar cell research.

Fri, 02/02/2018 | GeekWire

Materials Science & Engineering graduate student Robert Masse is passionate about renewable energy technology and its potential contribution to addressing climate change. His business, Astrolabe Analytics (formerly Cloud Instruments), focuses on improving battery analytics to assist the quest for better batteries. Masse recently won the Global Student Entrepreneur Award and is featured in GeekWire as a "Geek of the Week."

Wed, 01/31/2018 | UW News

The outsized impact of materials science on today’s world has prompted UW and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory to create the Northwest Institute for Materials Physics, Chemistry and Technology — or NW IMPACT. The new joint research endeavor will power discoveries and advancements in materials that transform energy, telecommunications, medicine, information technology and other fields.

Tue, 01/23/2018 | Clean Energy Institute

University of Washington Materials Science & Engineering (MSE) researchers have made a breakthrough in understanding the mechanics of a zinc-ion, aqueous-electrolyte model. This alternative technology is lower in energy density than lithium-ion batteries, with 30 times the power density. Jihui Yang, the Kyocera Associate Professor of MSE and MSE department chair, said that the research “points to a high-performance, low-cost, safe, and environmentally-friendly battery, ideal for grid energy storage.”

Wed, 01/17/2018 | UW Engineering

For the last decade, Aaron Feaver has used his entrepreneurial drive to pioneer the development of new low-carbon dioxide energy sources. His commitment to developing solutions in clean energy has solidified Washington state as a leader in the movement to reduce carbon dioxide in the environment, a driver of climate change. In 2003, Aaron left a career at Boeing to build a company in the field of renewable energy. He chose to pursue a degree in materials science and engineering to develop the technology. As a Ph.D. student, he researched low-cost carbon materials for hydrogen storage, laying the foundation for the energy start-up EnerG2. More about Aaron Feaver »

The 2018 Diamond Awards will be held on Thursday, May 10, 6–9 p.m.

Mon, 09/25/2017 | UW News

The new Molecular Engineering Materials Center's goal is to empower the next generation of science and engineering leaders. This will involve engaging and supporting students and postdoctoral researchers — and giving them the research and educational experiences, training and cross-disciplinary mentorship that they will need to forge careers on the cutting edge of materials science. “With this NSF support, the center will bring new opportunities in STEM education to groups that are underrepresented in STEM careers,” said UW professor of materials science and engineering Christine Luscombe, who is the center’s executive director for education and outreach. Luscombe helped lead the effort to secure NSF support for the Molecular Engineering Materials Center, along with MSE's Xiaodong Xu, and faculty across Engineering and the UW. Xiaodong Xu will be co-leading a team focused on the creation of new ultrathin semiconductor materials with unique properties. The center is funded by a $15.6 million, six-year grant from the National Science Foundation as part of its highly competitive Materials Research Science and Engineering Center (MRSEC) program.

Wed, 08/23/2017 | GeekWire

GeekWire visited the UW’s Clean Energy Testbeds to learn how the Testbeds' open-access infrastructure is key in reducing the time and money needed to turn innovative ideas into working prototypes. Materials Science & Engineering associate professor Devin MacKenzie is technical director of the Testbeds that have attracted users ranging from startups to Microsoft. MacKenzie showed off a new multistage roll-to-roll printer for solar cells, batteries, sensors, optical films, and thin-film devices and described how new hybrid materials can help double the efficiency of solar cells.

Sat, 07/29/2017 | The Seattle Times

EpiForAll started as an idea in UW Engineering's Engineering Innovation in Health class and is now on the path toward commercialization -- and bringing down skyrocketing cost of life-saving medicine.

EpiForAll won a first-place prize in the UW Buerk Center’s Hollomon Health Innovation Challenge, which came with a $15,000 award. That gave the EpiForAll team a high profile, as well as money to keep the project working.