2012-2013
ANNUAL
REPORT
Facts at a Glance
Tenure-Track Faculty FTE
Teaching Faculty FTE
Undergraduate Students
2012-2013 Highlights
12
2
156
Drexel Materials Researchers Develop
Materials to Improve Battery Technology
Distinguished University & Trustee Chair Professor Yury Gogotsi, A. W. Grosvenor Professor Michel Barsoum and colleagues
are the first to report successful intercalation of MXenes with several organic molecules, creating a flexible and electrically
conductive “paper” showing a lithium ion capacity of four times that of typical MXene material.
M.S. & B.S./M.S. Students
42
Ph.D. Students
68
Li Elected Fellow of the American Physical Society
Ph.D. Awarded (12-13)
10
M.S. Awarded (12-13)
18
Professor Christopher Li was recommended for Fellow by the Division of Polymer Physics. The election to Fellowship in the
American Physical Society is limited to no more than one half of one percent of the membership and is recognition of a
scholar’s outstanding contributions to the field of physics.
B.S. Awarded (12-13)
19
Research Expenditures
$5.5M
Refereed Journal Publications
110
Five National Fellowship Awardees
Five Materials students have received prominent national fellowship awards this year, including a Barry Goldwater
Scholarship, the Department of Defense Science, Mathematics, and Research for Transformation (SMART) Scholarship, a
Fulbright Scholarship, and two National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowships (NSF GRFP).
Alumni Appointed to Faculty Positions
Two recent Ph.D. alumni have been appointed to faculty positions at Ohio State University and University of Massachusetts
Amherst.
Barsoum, Gogotsi, with Students and Colleagues
Win ACerS 2013 Ross Coffin Purdy Award
This award is given to the author(s) “judged to have made the most valuable contribution to ceramic technical literature during
the calendar year prior to the selection.” The ACerS Board unanimously approved the award subcommittee’s selection of
Barsoum and Gogotsi et al.
11
15
15
20
24
Letter from the Department Head
2012 -2013 has been marked by growth,
particularly in our faculty and student ranks.
Not only have we grown in numbers, but we
have also continued to increase the quality
of our people and, with that, the level of our
accomplishments. The
result is an enthusiasm
that punctuates all aspects of our department.
This September we
welcomed two new assistant professors. Dr.
Garritt Tucker (Ph.D.
Georgia Tech, Postdoc
Sandia National Lab) is
an expert in structure/
property
relationships
and the behavior of materials in extreme
environments with atomistic simulations.
Dr. Ekaterina Pomerantseva (Ph.D.
Moscow State University, Postdoc University
of Maryland) will enhance our strength in
solid state chemistry and energy storage solutions. Leslie Anastasio has also joined
our staff as Operations Manager in a new
job share position with Dorilona Rose, a
first for Drexel.
4
Our established faculty have set a
good example for the newcomers. Dr.
Christopher Li has been elected Fellow
of the American Physical Society. This brings
the number of Fellow elections in the department to 12. Drs. Michel Barsoum and
Yury Gogotsi and colleagues received
the 2013 Ross Coffin Purdy Award for their
article “Two-Dimensional Transition Metal
Carbides” published in ACS Nano. This
award is given to the author(s) “judged to
have made the most valuable contribution
to ceramic technical literature during the calendar year prior to the selection.” The work
of Dr. James Rondinelli has appeared
in the Journal of the American Chemical
Society and Advanced Materials, and an
article on the Materials Genome Initiative
(MGI) is set to appear in The Bulletin of
the American Ceramic Society. Drs.
Steven May and Jason Baxter, affiliated faculty member in the Department of
Chemical and Biological Engineering, have
been awarded a $380,000 grant from
the National Science Foundation (NSF) for
“Photoexcited Carrier Dynamics in Oxide
Semiconductors for Photovoltaics.” The department has received another Department
of Education Graduate Assistance in Areas
of National Need (GAANN) award, led
by Dr. Michele Marcolongo, myself,
and Dr. Caroline Schauer. GAANN
BIOMSE: Innovative Biomaterials is an
award that provides funding to doctoral
students majoring in materials science and
engineering with a focus on biomaterials.
The research from our faculty and their
groups have also appeared on several
journal covers including Macromolecules
(Professor Christopher Li and Ph.D.
student Eric Laird), Advanced Healthcare
Materials (Dr. Yury Gogotsi, former
research professor Volker Presser, and
former postdoc Sun-Hwa Yeon), and
Journal of Applied Physics (Dr. Mitra
Taheri, Ph.D. candidates Christopher
R. Winkler and Michael L. Jablonski,
and colleagues from the University of Illinois,
Urbana-Champaign).
We announce that two of our recent Ph.D.
alumni have received academic positions.
Dr. Stephen Nonnenmann (Ph.D.
2010; advisor: Jonathan Spanier)
joins the Department of Mechanical and
Industrial Engineering at the University of
Massachusetts—Amherst and Dr. Stephen
Niezgoda (Ph.D. 2010; advisor: Surya
Kalidindi) joins Ohio State University with a
joint position in the Departments of Materials
Science & Engineering and Mechanical and
Aerospace Engineering. With the addition
of these alumni academic positions, 27% of
our Ph.D. graduates from 2006-2010 are
now faculty members in academia.
Our undergraduate class in September
2013 is expected to reach 156 students, an
all time high, and the quality of our students
continues to be the highest in the College
of Engineering. Our incoming class had
the highest GPA, SAT, and ACT averages
among the incoming classes compared to
all other departments within the College of
Engineering.
Our students successfully compete for
the most coveted national scholarships. This
year we had five students receive prestigious
national awards. Amanda Pentecost
(advisor: Yury Gogotsi) and Derrick
Smith (advisor: Christopher Li) have received NSF Graduate Research Fellowships
and are both continuing their Ph.D. studies
at Drexel. Matthew Hartshorne (advisor: Mitra Taheri) has received the DoD
SMART scholarship. Sarah Lightfoot
Vidal (advisor: Michele Marcolongo) is
a recipient of a Fulbright Scholarship. Emily
Buck (advisor: Caroline Schauer) is the
first Drexel Materials student to receive a
Barry Goldwater Scholarship.
We continue to bring the joys of materials
science and engineering to a larger community. This year marked our third offering
of Philly Materials Science and Engineering
Day. Presented in conjunction with the
University of Pennsylvania and in partnership with the Franklin Institute, among other
organizations, an unprecedented 2,000
visitors of all ages and backgrounds came
to experience talks, demos, and interactive
activities. I invite you to join us on Saturday,
February 1, 2014 for more materials science fun.
It should be noted that this past year marks
Professor Surya Kalidindi’s departure
to join Georgia Tech. Surya served as the materials department head from 2001 to 2007
and subsequently became department head
in Mechanical Engineering and Mechanics.
I would like to thank Surya for his service to
both our department and Drexel and wish
him all the best in his new position.
Finally, I will be stepping down as
Department Head on December 31 and
will pass the baton to Professor Michele
Marcolongo. These past 6.5 years of
my tenure have been tremendously rewarding. My sincere thanks to this truly special
group of faculty, staff, students, and alumni.
You have made this post an enjoyable one!
I am extremely proud to have served this
extraordinary group of people and look
forward to what is to come.
Antonios Zavaliangos, Ph.D.
Department Head and Professor
5
Materials Science & Engineering Faculty
Michel W. Barsoum
Steven May
Ph.D., Massachusetts Institute of Technology
A.W. Grosvenor Professor
Hao Cheng
Ph.D., Northwestern Univ.
Assistant Professor
Ekaterina Pomerantseva*
Ph.D., Northwestern University
Assistant Professor
Ph.D., Moscow State University
Assistant Professor
Yury G. Gogotsi
James Rondinelli
Ph.D., Kiev Polytechnic, UA
Distinguished Univ. & Trustee Chair Prof.
Richard Knight
Ph.D., University of California, Santa Barbara
Assistant Professor
Caroline L. Schauer
Ph.D., Loughborough, UK
Assoc. Dept. Head, Teaching Prof.
Christopher Y. Li
Ph.D., SUNY Stony Brook
Associate Professor
Wei-Heng Shih
Ph.D., University of Akron
Professor
Ph.D., Carnegie Mellon University
Hoeganaes Assistant Professor of Metallurgy
Garritt Tucker*
Ph.D., Georgia Institute of Technology
Assistant Professor
Christopher Weyant
Ph.D., Northwestern University
Associate Teaching Professor
Antonios Zavaliangos
Ph.D., Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Department Head and Professor
* Arrived in FY 2013—2014
Mohammad A. Islam
Ph.D., Columbia University
Research Assistant Professor
Vadym Mochalin
Ph.D., National Academy of Sciences of
Ukraine
Research Associate Professor
Alessia Polemi
Ph.D., University of Siena
Research Assistant Professor
Katsiaryna Prudnikova
Ph.D., University of Virginia
Research Assistant Professor
Assoc. Prof., Chemical & Biological Engineering
Yossef Elabd
Professor, Chemical & Biological Engineering
Adam Fontecchio
Professor, Electrical & Computer Engineering
Alexander Fridman
J. S. Nyheim Chair Prof., Mech. Engr. & Mech.
Haviva Goldman
Assoc. Professor, Neurobiology and Anatomy
Kenneth K. S. Lau
Ph.D., Columbia University
Associate Professor
RESEARCH FACULTY
Jason Baxter
Asst. Prof., Mechanical Engr. and Mechanics
Jonathan E. Spanier
Ph.D., Univ. of Pennsylvania
Professor
AFFILIATED FACULTY
E. Caglan Kumbur
Ph.D., Ohio State University
Professor
Michele Marcolongo
6
Mitra Taheri
Assoc. Prof., Chemical & Biological Engineering
Bahram Nabet
EMERITUS FACULTY
Roger Corneliussen
Roger D. Doherty
Ihab Kamel
Jack Keverian
Alan Lawley
Fellow of the National Academy of Engineering
Professor, Electrical and Computer Engineering
Giuseppe Palmese
Department Head, Chemical & Bio. Engr.
Wan Young Shih
Associate Professor, Biomed. Engr. & Health Sys.
Karl Sohlberg
Associate Professor, Chemistry
Margaret Wheatley
John M. Reid Prof., Biomed. Engr. & Health Sys.
Dr. Ekaterina Pomerantseva Joins
Department in September 2013
Dr. Ekaterina Pomerantseva joins the Department in September 2013 as Assistant Professor.
Prior to coming to Drexel, Dr. Pomerantseva was a postdoctoral research associate in the MEMS Sensors and Actuators
Laboratory (MSAL), led by Professor Reza Ghodssi, at the
University of Maryland, College Park. She worked in the area
of micro-/nanoelectromechanical systems (MEMS/NEMS) with a
focus on microdevices for energy storage, including the development of three-dimensional hierarchical electrodes for lithium-ion
microbatteries and a platform for in situ measurement of electrochemical reaction induced mechanical changes in lithium-ion
battery electrodes. She received a Ph.D. degree in 2007 from
Moscow State University (Moscow, Russia) where she also did
her undergraduate studies at the Department of Materials Science.
She explored the world of functional materials through research conducted under the supervision
of Professor Eugene Goodilin. Her research interests involved high temperature superconductors,
materials with colossal magnetoresistance, catalysts, ionic conductors, and cathodes for lithium
batteries. The latter became her major interest during the year and half that she stayed at Moscow
State University as a junior researcher. In 2009-2010 she worked as a postdoctoral fellow with
Professor Linda Nazar at the University of Waterloo (Waterloo, Canada), where she fabricated
and studied the electrochemical behavior of electrodes for lithium-oxygen batteries.
At Drexel, Dr. Pomerantseva’s Materials Electrochemistry Group will develop novel nanostructured materials and architectures for high performance electrochemical energy storage, with particular interest in exploring emerging directions such as hybrid supercapacitors, metal-air batteries
and multivalent intercalation systems.
Dr. Pomerantseva strives to develop long lasting, yet compact and safe, next generation power
sources. With a focus on fundamental science, her work will contribute to developing new energy
storage technologies with improved efficiency and better stability.
7
Materials In Action
Materials Science & Engineering Staff
Department Staff
Leslie Anastasio
Operations Manager
Sarit Kunz
Academic Program
Coordinator
Yenneeka Long
Business Manager
Andrew Marx
Keiko Nakazawa
Materials Program
Manager
Dorilona Rose
Operations Manager
Adam Weiss
Technology Support
Coordinator
Systems Administrator
Drexel
Nanotechnology
Institute (DNI)
Jill Buckley
Business Coordinator
Michelle Sipics
Education and
Outreach Coordinator
Core Facilities
Dmitri Barbash
Research Scientist, XPS
& XRD Manager
Ed Basgall
Manager, Scanning
Electron Microscopy
Sahar Javedani
Associate Director,
Core Facilities and
Special Projects
Craig Johnson
Manager, Transmission
Electron Microscopy
8
Materials Becomes First Drexel Department
to Implement Job Sharing Arrangement
Drexel Materials welcomes Leslie
Anastasio, who joined the staff in
November 2012 as Co-Operations
Manager with Dorilona Rose in
Drexel University’s first ever job sharing
arrangement. Leslie and Dorilona, who
has been with the department since
2002, both work half time, splitting the
work week and sharing responsibility
for communications, outreach, development, and special projects for the
department.
“We were pleased to be able to put
into place the first official Job Share Work
Arrangement within the Department of
Materials Science and Engineering,”
shares Nadia McCrimmon, Executive
Director in Human Resources. “The
Flexible Work Arrangement policy was
created to assist employees with maintaining a work-life balance. Job share is
one of four options that employees may
request as a flexible work arrangement.”
“With the success of the job
share within Materials Science and
Engineering, we hope that other departments will use this experience as an
example of how successful the Flexible
Work Arrangements can be with their
employees.”
Leslie graduated Magna Cum Laude
from Macalester College in 1993 and
came to Drexel Materials with close to
20 years
of experience
in
nonprofit
managem e n t ,
communications,
planning,
and fundraising.
Her past
roles have included Project Manager,
Administrative Manager, Public Affairs
Director, and Executive Director for
organizations providing youth services,
protecting women’s rights, and creating
affordable housing. When not at work,
Leslie enjoys spending time with her husband, Vern, and children Jake (10 yrs.)
and Elizabeth (8 yrs.), drawing, playing
the piano, and running.
Professor Hao Cheng’s Nanobiomaterials and Cell Engineering
Laboratory Develops Biomaterials for Unmet Medical Needs
Materials
that
interact
with biological
systems
have
changed
the
landscape
of
medicine.
From
blood
Dr. Hao Cheng in the
dialysis tubing
Nanobiomaterials
to implantable
and Cell Engineering
medical devices
Laboratory (NCEL).
to tissue regeneration scaffolds
to drug delivery
nanoparticles, biomaterials find their applications
in a broad range of diseases. Thanks to a growing
understanding of the structure-property relationship
of biomaterials and cell-materials interactions, the
development of biomaterial products to improve
human health care is increasing at a rapid pace.
Assistant Professor Hao Cheng and his students
in the Nanobiomaterials and Cell Engineering
Laboratory (NCEL) work at the interface of materials science and medicine, spanning fundamental
studies to translational research. The NCEL group
aims to understand nanomaterial-cell interactions
at a molecular level and apply this knowledge
in creating new biomaterials for disease therapy.
One major research thrust of the NCEL group
is the development of cell membrane-derived
nanoparticles as drug carriers for the treatment
of inflammation-related diseases including cancer
and cardiovascular disease. Nanoparticles less
than 200nm in size can alter the pharmacokinetics and toxicity of encapsulated drugs in ways
that improve efficacy and reduce side-effects.
So far there are about a dozen FDA-approved
nanomedicines, used mostly for cancer therapy
because leaky tumor vasculature and
impaired lymphatic drainage allow
nanoparticles to passively accumulate
in tumors. The low efficiency of targeting, however, represents a bottleneck
to advance nanomedicines into clinical
applications. Currently, nanoparticles
are mostly made of polymers or lipids
which are quickly cleared by phagocytes in the liver and spleen of patients
after systematic administration since
these nanoparticles are recognized by
phagocytes as “foreign” bodies. The
NCEL group utilizes the membranes of
circulating cells, such as red blood cells
(RBCs) and white blood cells (WBCs),
as the materials to fabricate nanoparticles. Particles derived from patient
RBC or WBC membranes are expected
to be recognized as “self” by immune systems.
Reduced clearance will extend particle circulation
time and increase the chance that nanoparticles
accumulate in diseased tissues. Nature has its own
mechanism to deliver cells to targeted locations,
for example leukocytes homing to inflammatory
tissues. The NCEL group is developing intelligent
nanoparticles which harness the cell homing process to target inflammatory tissues. This strategy
requires the proper control of nanoparticle-cell
RBC membrane-derived nanoparticles (MNP). A) Schematic
illustration of MNP fabrication using chemically modified cell
membranes. B) Phase contrast image of RBCs. C) Representative
confocal image of RBCs which were engineered on membranes
with fluorescently labeled peptide. D) Representative transmission electron microscopy image of negatively stained MNP.
9
Materials In Action
interactions. To this end, the NCEL group uses
a cell membrane engineering technique, initially
developed by Prof. Hao Cheng, to modify the
membranes of RBCs with peptides targeting inflamed blood vessels and circulating cells at the
same time, enabling the conjugation of peptides/
proteins onto stem cell membranes without affecting cell viability, proliferation or multipotency. The
modified RBC membranes are then isolated and
fabricated into nanoparticles to deliver drugs into
tumors and atherosclerotic plaques. The NCEL
group also investigates the effect of binding
kinetics on nanoparticle cell interactions, which
are subject to change under fluid shear force. In
spite of the extensive study of nanobiomaterials,
Transmission
electron image
of a-MEGO.
Image taken by
Dr. Eric Stach
of Brookhaven
National Lab.
10
investigation of the kinetics of nanoparticle-cell
interactions has been rare and may lead to significant findings to modulate cellular functions.
Stem cells can self-renew and differentiate into
specialized cell types under proper stimulation,
and have become the cornerstone of regenerative medicine, promising to address many unmet
medical needs. One of the major hurdles to using stem cells for tissue regeneration is the low
efficiency of homing and engraftment of stem cells
in diseased tissues. The second research area
of the NCEL group is to engineer stem cells with
non-genetic methods to enhance cell homing to inflammatory tissues where regeneration is needed.
Non-genetic engineering methods circumvent the
safety issues associated with genetic modification
of cells. The NCEL group is optimizing a chemical
modification method, which showed promising
results in vivo, and developing new methods using
nanotechnology to further increase the availability
of stem cells to diseased tissues. In addition to the
potential for increased targeting, the engineered
cells are expected to reside in a microenvironment
more suitable for regeneration than unmodified
cells, as the engineered cells recognize the diseased tissues at a molecular level.
The NCEL group strives to integrate materials
science with biology to develop novel biomaterials. Their research is poised to benefit human life.
Nanomaterials Group Collaboration Breaks Low
Temperature Energy Storage Record
Distinguished University
and Trustee Chair Professor
Yury Gogotsi, members of
the Nanomaterials Research
Group, and collaborators
at University of Texas at
Austin and the Paul Sabatier
University
in
Toulouse,
France have engineered an
electrolyte
supercapacitor
system that can store a large amount of energy at
extremely low temperatures.
Recently featured in the journal Nano Energy,
this research suggests a vastly improved alternative to current systems that power technology at
very low temperatures, which require oversized
batteries that have a very low efficiency and short
lifetime.
Anyone who has tried to start a vehicle on a
very cold day understands that low temperatures
adversely affect engine performance. This is in
part because cold temperatures thicken motor oil,
requiring extra energy to get engine parts moving,
and because the battery’s ions are slowed by the
cold, causing the battery to operate at very low
efficiency. In the supercapacitor system developed
by Nanomaterials Group researchers and their
collaborators, a unique carbon nanomaterial,
activated microwave exfoliated graphite oxide
(a-MEGO), was combined with a eutectic mixture
of ionic liquids. The a-MEGO has a high surface
area and allows for a large amount of charge to
be stored capacitively on its surface, while the
mixture of ionic liquids has a very low melting
point and a wide voltage stability window. This
supercapacitor system delivers the most energy at
a low temperature of -50 °C (-58 °F). Commercial
supercapacitors, by comparison, use an electrolyte that will fail at temperatures below -25 °C
(-13 °F). Additionally, supercapacitors will last for
more than 10 years and up to 1 million charge/
discharge cycles, compared to batteries that will
last a couple years for about 1 thousand cycles.
This study reinforces the potential of graphene in energy storage applications, but also
demonstrates that only the right combination of an
electrode material and an electrolyte leads to truly
outstanding performance. This opens the door to
development of even better supercapacitors using
safe and non-flammable ionic liquid electrolytes.
Drexel Materials Researchers Develop Materials to Improve Battery Technology
Members of Drexel Materials’ Nanomaterials
and MAX Phase Research Groups recently reported on the discovery of a new family of two-dimensional materials called “MXenes.” The materials’
structures are similar to graphene, with which they
share many properties, including good electrical
conductivity and potential applications in energy
storage. Now, in a Nature Communications
article titled “Intercalation and Delamination of
Layered Carbides and Carbonitrides,” Professors
Yury Gogotsi, Michel Barsoum, and colleagues
have demonstrated several new possible avenues
for practical applications of MXenes.
MXenes are transition metal carbides and nitrides, created by selectively removing aluminum
from layered ternary carbides known as MAX
phases. Through this exfoliation process, the carbide layers are separated into two MXene sheets
just a few atoms thick. MXenes can accommodate
various ions and molecules between their layers
by a process known as intercalation, which is
sometimes a necessary step in order to exploit
the materials’ unique properties. For example,
placing lithium ions between MXene sheets has
been shown to render them promising materials
for both lithium-ion batteries and electrochemical
capacitors.
Computational studies have suggested that
fully exfoliating, or delaminating, certain MXenes
would yield layers with exceptional charge
capacities for use in battery anodes. To date,
however, large-scale delamination had not been
achieved. In “Intercalation and Delamination of
Layered Carbides and Cabonitrides,” the Drexel
Materials team reports on successful intercalation
of MXenes with several organic molecules, including dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO), which allowed
them to fully exfoliate stacked layers into MXene
sheets and ultimately create MXene “paper” by
filtering flakes from solution. This flexible and
electrically conductive “paper” showed a lithium
ion capacity of four times that of typical MXene
material, with extremely high charging rates and
a cyclability superior to graphite, which is used
in commercial lithium-ion batteries. Critically, this
work demonstrates that such material can be synthesized on a large scale.
Hydroxyl terminated MXene Ti3C2 with monolayers of hydrazine molecules between the MXene
layers. Intercalation reactions, like the one shown,
establish MXenes as full-fledged members of the
growing family of 2D materials.
Image credit: Vadym Mochalin
11
Excellence in Scholarship
Master of Science in Materials Science and Engineering
Doctor of Philosophy in Materials Science and Engineering
Lucas Amspacher
Matthew Hartshorne
Denis Madende
Brian Beatty
Nasreen Khan
Ian McDonald
Pietro Bonato
Andrew Lang
Amanda Pentecost
Guannan Chen
Hang Kuen Lau
Thomas Richards
Robert Coward
Sarah Lightfoot Vidal
Nathan Wald
Robert Devlin
Travis Longenbach
Hanqi Wu
Bachelor of Science in
Materials Science and Engineering
Ioannis Neitzel
“Development and Characterization
of a Chemically Crosslinked Polyvinyl
Alcohol/Polyethylene Glycol Hydrogel for
Injectable Nucleus Pulposus Replacement”
“Magnetoelectricity in Individual
Multi-component Nanowires”
“Nanodiamond-Polymer Composites”
Supervising Professor: Jonathan Spanier
Current position: Development Engineer;
Hella; Lippstadt, Germany
Supervising Professors: Michele
Marcolongo and Anthony Lowman
Current position: Postdoctoral Researcher;
Rowan University; Glassboro, NJ
Xi Chen
“Design, Synthesize and Characterize
Hierarchically Ordered Nanofibers
(NFSKs) for Biomimetic Mineralization”
Yen-Ming Lu
Lucas Amspacher
(Summa Cum Laude)
Ian McDonald
Brian Beatty
(Cum Laude)
Amanda Pentecost
(Magna Cum Laude)
Alicia Busenius-Kriete
Elizabeth Poyss
Robert Coward
Amalie Elizabeth Donius
Brittany Preston
Utku Guclu
Bryant Richardson
Nasreen Khan
(Cum Laude)
Ebony Thompson
“Structure-Property-Processing
Correlations in Chitosan-based
Porous Hybrid Materials”
Sarah Lightfoot Vidal
Travis Longenbach
(Cum Laude)
12
Stephanie Howell Johnson
Jonathan Andrus
Andrew Lang
Congratulations to the Class of 2013!
Valerie Regina Binetti
Ashley Moretti
Supervising Professor: Christopher Y. Li
Current position: Postdoctoral Researcher;
Johnson & Johnson; Skillman, NJ
Elizabeth Toby
Supervising Professors: Antonios
Zavaliangos and Ulrike G.K. Wegst
Nathan Wald
(Summa Cum Laude)
Current position: Postdoctoral Researcher;
Oral Biology, School of Dental Medicine,
University of Pittsburgh; Pittsburgh, PA
Current position: Applications ScientistGeotech; Croda (Specialty Chemicals); DE
Marjorie Austero Kiechel
“Post-processing of Electrospun
Chitosan Fibers”
Supervising Professor: Caroline L. Schauer
Current position: Visiting Researcher;
Natural Polymers and Photonics Laboratory,
Drexel University; Philadelphia, PA
Nina Jeong Lane
“Lattice Dynamical Studies
of Select MAX Phases”
Supervising Professors: Michel
Barsoum and James Rondinelli
Current position: Rotation Engineer; Intel
Corporation; Mountain View, CA
Supervising Professor: Yury Gogotsi
Carlos Perez
“High Power Electric DoubleLayer Capacitors based on RoomTemperature Ionic Liquids and
Nanostructured Carbons”
Supervising Professor: Yury Gogotsi
Current position: Postdoctoral
Fellow; Bonnell Group, University of
Pennsylvania; Philadelphia, PA
Riju Mohan Singhal
“Carbon Nanotube Based Devices
for Intracellular Analysis”
Supervising Professor: Yury Gogotsi
Current position: Applications Engineer; CVD
Equipment Corporation; Central Islip, NY
Oren David Leaffer
“Photoluminescence and Resonance
Raman Spectroscopy of MOCVD Grown
GaAs/AlGaAs Core-Shell Nanowires”
Supervising Professor: Jonathan Spanier
13
Excellence in Scholarship
Drexel Material Advantage Students Visit Washington D.C. to Advocate for STEM Education
Every April, materials students from around the country converge in Washington,
On April 11th, Gregory, Boris, Ziyin, and Drexel Mechanical Engineering
D.C. for Congressional Visits Day. Organized by Material Advantage, the student
& Mechanics undergraduate Daniel Diazdelcastillo teamed up with Carnegie
professional organization, Congressional Visits Day is designed to raise visibility
Mellon undergraduate Lauren Jellison to visit the offices of legislators from across
and support for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM).
Pennsylvania and their home districts. They shared their stories about how federal
This year, three students from Drexel Materials participated in the event: Ph.D.
candidates Gregory Vetterick (Advisor: Mitra Taheri) and Boris Dyatkin
(Advisor: Yury Gogotsi) and undergraduate student Ziyin Huang. Prior to the
event, the students spent several weeks contacting the offices of members of
Congress, arranging meetings with representatives, senators, and their staff. On
April 10th, they traveled to D.C. and spent the evening learning about life on the hill
from Congressional Fellows and networking with their peers.
funding for STEM education and basic research have directly impacted their lives
and asked for the senators’ and representatives’ continued support. The group
Awards & Achievements
Li Elected Fellow of the American Physical Society
Professor Christopher Li has been elected
Fellow of the American Physical Society.
one half of one percent of the membership and is recognition of a scholar’s
outstanding contributions to the field of physics.
Li was recommended for Fellow by the Division
of Polymer Physics. The election to Fellowship in the
American Physical Society is limited to no more than
Li has been elected “For his outstanding contributions to the understanding
of structure/property relationships of complex polymer-based, heterogeneous
architectures.” He will be recognized for this honor at the annual meeting of
the Division of Polymer Physics.
was able to visit the offices of nine members of Congress, including Pennsylvania
Senator Robert Casey, Jr., Representative Allyson Schwartz (PA-13, Montgomery
and Philadelphia Counties), and Representative Chaka Fattah (PA-02, Philadelphia
County), whose district includes Drexel University.
This marks the third consecutive year that Drexel Materials students have participated in the event.
Knight Receives 2013 William Hunt Eisenman Award
Professor Richard Knight received the 2013 William Hunt Eisenman Award from the Philadelphia
Liberty Bell Chapter of ASM International. Established in 1957, the William Hunt Eisenman Award recognizes
dedicated service to the society, foresight, dynamic management, leadership, and promotion of the metals
industry and metallurgical education.
At the award presentation, Professor Knight delivered a lecture entitled “Recycling of Polymeric Materials
Using Induction Coupled Plasma Technology.” Currently, polymeric materials make up a significant percentage of the municipal solid waste stream. Few economically viable recycling techniques are available to deal
with this polymeric material, and it is either dumped in landfills, incinerated, or inefficiently recycled through
downgraded use. Thermal plasma treatment has the potential to effectively recycle polymeric material by
converting it back into monomers or other useful materials.
Richard Knight (center) with MSE alum Ron Smith
(left), and Trevor Jones of Solar Atmospheres (right)
Kristy Jost Selected to Attend Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting
14
Back Row (L to R): Greg Vetterick, Representative Chaka Fattah,
Boris Dyatkin; Front Row: Daniel Diazdelcastillo (Drexel MEM),
Lauren Jellison (Carnegie Mellon), Ziyin Huang
Left to Right: Ziyin Huang, Greg Vetterick, Lauren Jellison, Senator
Robert Casey, Jr., Daniel Diazdelcastillo, Boris Dyatkin
Materials Ph.D. candidate and DoD NDSEG
Fellow Kristy Jost (advisor: Yury Gogotsi, co-advisor: Genevieve Dion) was selected to participate in
the 63rd Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting, held from
June 30 to July 5, 2013 in Lindau, Germany.
Lindau Award recipients are nominated and selected by the sponsoring
agencies and organizations (ORAU, ORISE, DOE, NIH, NSF, Mars, Inc.).
Kristy, who was sponsored by Mars, Inc., was selected as one of 550 young
researchers from among thousands of applications from around the world to
attend this prestigious annual meeting.
15
Kristy conducts research on smart textiles and, more specifically, wearable
energy storage. The goal of her research is to provide non-toxic, flexible power
to various electronic components embedded in clothing. She completed her
Bachelor of Science in Fashion Design at Drexel’s Westphal College of Media
Arts and Design and transitioned to the Department of Materials Science and
Engineering after completing research on smart textiles as an undergraduate.
awarding scholarships to college students who intend to pursue careers in these
fields.”
This year’s Lindau meeting focused on Chemistry and Chemistry-related
fields. At the meeting, there are opportunities for both formal and informal
interaction between the Laureates and the young researchers.
Five Materials Students Receive
National Fellowship Awards
Emily has chosen a research path, getting involved in the lab very early
in her undergraduate career. She is currently working with Professor Caroline
Schauer’s Natural Polymers and Photonics Group to develop an economic filter
from crab shells that is able to remove select contaminants from polluted water
sources, such as arsenic and mercury. The filter is composed of electrospun
nanofibers from the crab shells which are post-processed through chemical
functionalization. In the coming years, Emily plans to continue to pursue the
ways in which electrospun polymer nanofibers can be used for water filtration
applications. After completing the B.S./M.S. program, she plans to obtain a
Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering to prepare for a career in research.
Emily Buck Receives Goldwater Scholarship
Matthew Hartshorne Receives SMART Scholarship
B.S./M.S. student Emily Buck (advisor: Caroline Schauer) has been
awarded a 2013 Barry Goldwater Scholarship. The Barry Goldwater
Scholarship and Excellence in Education Program seeks to “provide a continuing source of highly qualified scientists, mathematicians, and engineers by
Ph.D. student Matthew Hartshorne (advisor: Mitra Taheri) has received
the 2013 Department of Defense Science, Mathematics, and Research for
Transformation (SMART) Scholarship. This award provides a full scholarship and
stipend along with post-graduation employment in the Department of Defense.
Previous Drexel Materials Lindau nominees include Jessica Schiffman (2008,
awarded) and Nina Lane (2011).
(Left to right) MSE students Emily Buck,
Matthew Hartshorne, Sarah Lightfoot
Vidal, Amanda Pentecost, and Derrick
Smith received national fellowship
awards.
16
Awards & Achievements
The Goldwater scholarship is given to 300 students nationally, and each
University is allowed to nominate four candidates. This year all four Drexel
nominees were awarded scholarships. Emily is the first Drexel Materials student
to receive the scholarship.
Matt will be studying the effects of strain on the sensitization of grain boundary
engineered austenitic stainless steels and will take a position in the Air Force
Research Laboratory upon graduating.
Sarah Lightfoot Vidal Receives Fulbright Scholarship
B.S./M.S. student Sarah Lightfoot Vidal (advisor: Michele Marcolongo)
has been selected as a Fulbright student grantee to work in Concepción,
Chile at the Centro de Investigación de Polímeros Avanzados (CIPA) in collaboration with the Functional Polymers department at the Universidad de
Concepción. Her project focuses on the development of a polymer blend of
Polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHA) for wound healing applications.
Sarah has been an undergraduate researcher with Dr. Marcolongo’s
Biomaterials Research Group for three years and plans to pursue a Ph.D. in
Biomedical Engineering at Tufts University. With this award, Sarah joins the
largest group of Drexel students to receive the award in a single year. She is
also the second Drexel Materials student to receive a Fulbright scholarship while
enrolled as a student in the department, joining Dr. Aaron Sakulich (advisor: Dr.
Michel Barsoum) who received the award in 2007.
Amanda Pentecost and Derrick Smith Receive
NSF Graduate Research Fellowships
B.S./Ph.D. student Amanda Pentecost (advisor: Yury Gogotsi) and
Ph.D. student Derrick Smith (advisor: Christopher Li) are both recipients of
the 2013 National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship (NSF
GRFP). The fellowship provides funding for three years of graduate stipend and
tuition support, as well as opportunities to conduct research internationally.
Amanda’s current research is a collaborative project with the Shanghai
Advanced Research Institute’s Nanomedicine and Translational Medicine
Center, located in Shanghai, China. She is working to create a drug delivery
system with a carbon nanoparticle platform in order to deliver chemotherapeutic
drugs to brain tumors.
Derrick’s current research involves investigating nano-confinement behaviors
of ion transport in polymer systems for polymer battery membrane applications
using holographic lithography. The strength of his research in this area has led
to his first publication, “Tuning Ion Conducting Pathways Using Holographic
Polymerization,” in Nano Letters 2012 12;1.
Nationwide, 36 fellowships were awarded to students in Materials Science
and Engineering departments. Of these, only seven departments, including
Drexel Materials, received two or more NSF GRFP awards this year.
With these two awards, a total of ten students from Drexel’s Department of
Materials Science and Engineering have received the fellowship. Past recipients
include Ph.D. student Kristy Jost (advisor: Yury Gogotsi), B.S. student Prineha
Narang (advisor: Yury Gogotsi), B.S./M.S. student Holly McIlwee (advisor,
Caroline Schauer), M.S. student Alex Moseson (advisor: Michel Barsoum), and
Ph.D. students Stephen Niezgoda (advisor: Surya Kalidindi), Kris Behler (advisor: Yury Gogotsi), María Pía Rossi (advisor: Yury Gogotsi), and John Chmiola
(advisor: Yury Gogotsi).
Ph.D. Students Babak Anasori and Michael
Naguib Awarded High Praise at MS&T
At the 2012 Material Science & Technology (MS&T) Conference in
Pittsburgh, PA, Ph.D. student Babak Anasori (advisor: Dr. Michel Barsoum)
received the Diamond Award
from the Basic Science Division of
17
the American Ceramic Society for Graduate Excellence in Materials Science
(GEMS) and, along with Ph.D. student Michael Naguib (advisors: Barsoum
& Gogotsi), earned a Roland B. Snow Best of Show Award for their image
“Green MXene Turtle.”
Awards & Achievements
The GEMS Awards recognize the outstanding scientific and academic
achievements of graduate students in materials science and engineering. Each
year, the selection committee identifies ten students to receive the GEMS award
and, based on the quality of their oral presentations at MS&T, selects the top
three from that group to receive Diamond Awards.
Drexel Materials Students Shine at 2012 MRS Fall Meeting
Drexel Materials Science and Engineering students racked up an impressive
number of awards at the Fall 2012 meeting of the Materials Research Society
(MRS), which was held November 25 - 30 in Boston, MA.
Ph.D. students Kristy Jost (advisor: Yury Gogotsi) and Riju Singhal
(advisor: Yury Gogotsi) were among 24 students from 16 institutions, including Harvard, MIT, and Stanford, invited to present research as finalists for
the Graduate Students Awards. Only Cornell University had more finalists for
these awards than Drexel. MRS Graduate Student Awards honor and encourage graduate students whose academic achievements and current materials
research display a high level of excellence and distinction. Jost and Singhal
2012 MRS Graduate Student Award winners
Riju Singhal (far left) and Kristy Jost (far right)
with Professor Yury Gogotsi (center left) and
MRS President Bruce Clemens (center right).
18
each received silver awards, which include a certificate and $200 prize.
Jost’s presentation, “All-textile EDLCs for Applications in Wearable Electronics,”
described her work on fabrics capable of energy storage. Singhal discussed
carbon nanotube endoscopes for single cell studies in his presentation “Carbon
Nanotube Based Multifunctional Probes for Intercellular Analysis and Microfluid
Separation.”
According to MRS President Bruce Clements, this is the first time two students
of the same advisor won competitive and very prestigious Graduate Student
Awards. Moreover, each of them won additional awards at this MRS meeting.
Kristy Jost received the Arthur Nowick Graduate Student Award for showing
Professor Yury Gogotsi with MRS Best Poster
Award winners Yang Gao and Riju Singhal.
Ph.D. student Babak Anasori’s image “The
Happy 2-D World,” 2nd place winner
in the MRS Science as Art Contest.
particular promise as a future teacher and mentor.
Jost received a presentation plaque and $500
prize with this award. Riju Singhal and Electrical
and Computer Engineering Ph.D. student Yang
Gao (advisor: Adam Fontecchio) were selected for
a Best Poster Award, which also includes a $500
prize. Their entry “Carbon Based Multifunctional
Nano-probes for Cellular Injection, Potential
Measurement, and Electrophysiology” was one of
a handful to receive this award out of over 800+
poster entries. The winning team also includes
Professors Zuly Orynbaeva and Gary Friedman.
Additional awards were given to Ph.D. student
Babak Anasori (advisor: Michel Barsoum),
who’s piece “The Happy 2-D World,” won a second place award in the Science as Art Competition,
and to the Drexel MRS student chapter (president:
Jake McDonough), which took third place in the
MRS T-shirt design contest. “It’s wonderful to see
our students receiving this much-deserved recognition,” says Yury Gogotsi, Distinguished University
and Trustee Chair Professor. “We are delighted to
see this acknowledgement of Drexel’s outstanding
materials science and engineering programs from
MRS. This clearly places Drexel among the leading institutions in the world in the materials field.”
Ph.D. Student Joshua Young Places in Sigma Xi Student Research Showcase
Ph.D. student Joshua Young (advisor:
James Rondinelli) won third place in the Graduate
Chemistry/Biochemistry Division of the Sigma Xi
Student Research Showcase for his work “Atomic
Scale Structural Design Strategies for Artificial
Polar Oxides.” Sigma Xi is a scientific research
society founded in 1886 to honor excellence in
scientific investigation and foster research cooperation among all fields of science and engineering. The Sigma Xi Student Research Showcase is
a virtual research presentation competition open
to graduate, undergraduate, and advanced high
school students. Joshua’s
presentation is available
for viewing online at
http://joshuayoungresearch.tumblr.com.
The following graduate students have been awarded
fellowships from the College of Engineering (from left to
right): Shan Cheng (advisor: Christopher Li) – Harry Brown
Fellowship Fund; Gregory Vetterick (advisor: Mitra Taheri)
– Koerner Family Award; Babak Anasori (advisor: Michel
Barsoum) – George Hill, Jr. Endowed Fellowship Fund;
Mark Scafetta (advisor: Steven May) – Koerner Family
Award; John (Jake) McDonough (advisor: Yury Gogotsi) –
Leroy Resser Endowed Fellowship Fund; and Joshua Young
(advisor: James Rondinelli) – Joseph and Shirley Carleone
Endowed Fellowship Fund.
19
ALUMN IMPACT
Ph.D. Alumnus Stephen Niezgoda Appointed Assistant Professor at OSU
Alumnus
Stephen
Niezgoda (Ph.D. 2010,
advisor: Surya Kalidindi)
has accepted a joint
appointment as assistant
professor in both the
Department of Materials
Science and Engineering
and the Department of Mechanical and
Aerospace Engineering at Ohio State University
(OSU) beginning August 2013.
At OSU, Stephen’s research will focus on developing programs in crystal plasticity and other
micromechanics modeling, stochastic approaches
to multiscale modeling, computational material
design tools, and materials data sciences.
Most recently, Stephen was a post-doctoral
researcher with the Materials in Dynamic and
Radiation Extremes group within the Materials
Science and Technology Division at Los Alamos
National Laboratory. He worked with Don
Brown at the Los Alamos Neutron Science Center
(LANSCE), where he focused on the computational and experimental challenges of 3D High
Energy X-ray Diffraction Microscopy (HEDM)
(evolution of nuclear fuel assemblies during
simulated reactor conditions). Stephen previously
worked with Carlos Tome on developing the new
technique of cross-correlation EBSD, as well as
crystal plasticity models for hexagonal and low
symmetry materials.
Prior to joining Los Alamos, Stephen completed his dissertation work in the Mechanics of
Microstructures Group on the statistical analysis
of microstructure data and microscopy image processing techniques. Upon graduation, Stephen
was selected as the graduating doctoral student
deemed to have the “Most Promise to Enhance
Drexel’s Reputation” in the Mathematical Sciences
and Engineering category. He was the recipient
of NSF GRFP, DoD NDSEG (declined), and NSF
IGERT fellowships.
probe approach enables the first direct imaging
of bulk-mediated and surface-mediated charge
transfer processes within SOFC membrane electrode assemblies.
During his doctoral studies at Drexel, Stephen
worked in the Mesoscale Materials Laboratory
At UMass Amherst, Stephen will form the
Nanomaterials for Interface-Controlled Energy
20
Laboratory (NICE), which focuses on the design,
synthesis, and in-situ characterization of nanostructured materials for use in energy transduction
technologies such as solid oxide fuel cell electrode
assemblies and organic photovoltaics.
Stephen most recently served as a Nano/
Bio Interface Center postdoctoral research fellow in the Department of Materials Science and
Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania under
the guidance of Professor
Dawn A. Bonnell. His
research focused on
clarifying the roles of
interfacial phenomena
and transfer mechanisms within energy-related
materials via direct, localized scanning probe microscopy imaging methodologies under extreme
operating conditions. This high-temperature scan
Engineering. He also received the NSF-IGERT
and NSF GK-12 fellowships during his tenure in
the department.
Materials Alumna Dr. Svetlana Dimovski Quoted in Article on Open Innovation
Alumna Dr. Svetlana Dimovski (Ph.D.
2006; advisor: Yury Gogotsi) was interviewed for
an article about “open innovation” (OI) that was
featured in the October 2012 issue of Specialty
Chemicals Magazine.
The article discusses how many major
chemical manufacturers are creating or enhancing
Ph.D. Alumnus Stephen Nonnenmann Appointed
Assistant Professor at UMass Amherst
Alumnus Stephen Nonnenmann (Ph.D.
2010, advisor: Jonathan Spanier) has accepted an appointment as assistant professor
in the Department of Mechanical and Industrial
Engineering at the University of MassachusettsAmherst in the area of Materials Engineering,
effective September 1, 2013.
on the synthesis and characterization of nextgeneration non-volatile memory elements, which
exploited nanoscale curvature to preserve functionality at finite length scales. For this, Stephen
earned the “Best Doctoral Dissertation” award
in the category of Mathematical Sciences and
formalized infrastructures that encourage OI between private industry, academia, government
agencies, and professional groups in order to
speed the development and utilization of specialty
chemicals. Dimovski, who serves as Manager
of Open Innovation and Science Relations for
BASF North America, is quoted describing how
process transparency
and agility are critical components of
their efforts to build
outside collaborative
efforts.
Ph.D. Alumnus Dr. Ranjan Dash Featured in Inaugural
Issue of Drexel Magazine 40 Under 40
Ph.D. alumnus
Dr.
Ranjan
Dash (MBA/Ph.D.
’06, advisor: Yury
Gogotsi) has been
featured
in
the
inaugural issue of
Drexel Magazine’s
40 Under 40.
The Drexel 40 Under 40 features young
alumni/ae who exhibit innovative, entrepreneurial, and cutting-edge qualities in their careers
and leadership. Ranjan has been noted as a cofounder of a start-up nanotechnology company.
Ranjan is previously the recipient of the 2011
Alumni Entrepreneur Award from the Drexel
University Alumni Association and the Drexel
University Young Alumni Entrepreneur Award, as
well as an MIT Technology Review TR35 as one
of 35 innovators under the age of 35 representing the cutting-edge in science and technology.
Upon graduation, he received the graduate student “Most Likely to Enhance Drexel’s Reputation”
Award (Engineering and Physical Sciences).
Ranjan was the first Drexel student to complete a
Ph.D. and M.B.A. simultaneously.
21
ALUMN IMPACT
Alumnus Dr. William Frazier Selected 2013 NAVAIR Esteemed Fellow
Materials alumnus
Dr.
William
E.
Frazier (B.S 1981,
M.S. 1984, Ph.D.
1987) was selected
as a 2013 Naval Air
Systems Command (NAVAIR) Esteemed Fellow.
Esteemed Fellow is the highest honor awarded
through NAVAIR’s peer selection Fellows Program,
which recognizes highly skilled individuals from
NAVAIR’s engineering and scientific community
deemed to be experts within their fields. Esteemed
Fellows represent peer designation of the top .25
percent of the NAVAIR research and engineering
workforce. Dr. Frazier is the Chief Scientist of Air
Vehicle Engineering at NAVAIR.
Alumnus Dr. Neville Vakharia Appointed Assistant Professor
and Research Director in Drexel’s Westphal College
Alumnus Dr. Neville Vakharia (B.S.,
1990) has been appointed assistant professor and research director in Drexel’s Westphal
College of Media Arts & Design. After earning
his bachelor’s degree in materials, Vakharia
worked in new product development, marketing,
and global product management for W.L. Gore
& Associates, Inc., manufacturer of GORE-TEX
products. He holds two international patents
and has developed several new products and
technologies.
With over 10 years of experience as an arts
administration professional, Vakharia most recently
22
held the position of Director of the Cultural Data
Project (CDP) at The Pew Charitable Trusts, where
he oversaw the operations, expansion, and strategic direction of CDP, a growing national initiative
created to improve the management and financial
capacity of arts organizations, inform grant making
strategies, and serve as a powerful tool for cultural
policy research and analysis. Prior to joining Pew,
Vakharia served as Director of Technology Services
and Programs for the Arts & Business Council of
Greater Philadelphia, where he created and
launched the Technology Connectors, a program
designed to support the technological capabilities
of the region’s arts and cultural organizations
through
education,
strategic
planning,
and consulting. As
Director of Marketing for the Prince Music Theater,
Vakharia oversaw all audience development
strategies, and for 12 years was the co-producer
of the ArtsFest Film Festival, central Pennsylvania’s
largest film festival. Vakharia has worked as an
adjunct faculty member in the Arts Administration
program and earned his Master of Science in Arts
Administration from Drexel University.
Dr. George Dieter Selected for Alpha Sigma Mu Distinguished Life Member Award
Dr. George E. Dieter was chosen as a
recipient of the Alpha Sigma Mu Distinguished
Life Member Award, presented as part of the
Materials Science and Technology 2012
Conference and Exhibition in Pittsburgh, PA in
October 2012.
Engineering Education (ASEE),
and was national president of
ASEE in 1994. He was elected
a member of the National
Academy of Engineering in
1993.
Dieter received his B.S. in Metallurgical
Engineering from Drexel University in 1950
and later returned to head the department and
subsequently serve as Dean of Engineering.
He also holds a Sc.D. from Carnegie Mellon
University and served as the Director of the
Processing Research Institute there from 1973 to
1977. He subsequently went on to hold the
position of Dean of Engineering at the University
of Maryland from 1977 to 1994.
Alpha Sigma Mu is the
international professional honor
society for materials science
and engineering. According to
their website, “Distinguished Life
Member is Alpha Sigma Mu’s
highest honor...This award is to
be conferred upon those select
few whose technical attainment
and contributions to society
through leadership in the field of
materials science and engineering have resulted in significant
benefits to humankind.”
In particular, Dieter is known for his
pioneering texts in two areas at the interface
between materials and mechanical engineering, Mechanical Metallurgy, first published in
1961, and Engineering Design: A Materials
and Processing Approach, the first published
text in this field. He was chair of the Engineering
Deans Council of the American Society for
Dieter was honored, along with alumna Dr.
Elizabeth Hoffman (MSE B.S. 2002, Ph.D.
2007; advisors: Michel Barsoum and Yury
Gogotsi), 2012 ASM International Silver Medal
Distinguished Life Member Award winner Dr. George
Dieter (center) with Alpha Sigma Mu Fellows Dr. Fred
Schmidt (left) and George Vander Voort (right).
Awardee, and Dr. Antonios Zavaliangos, Alpha
Sigma Mu Fellow, at an event sponsored by
the department and Howard Kuhn on Sunday,
October 7, 2012.
23
MAJOR RESEARCH INITIATIVES & ACTIVITIES
Barsoum, Gogotsi, with Students and Colleagues
Win ACerS 2013 Ross Coffin Purdy Award
A. W. Grosvenor Professor Michel W.
Barsoum (top left) , Distinguished University and
Trustee Chair Professor Yury Gogotsi,(top right),
Ph.D. candidate Michael Naguib (bottom left,
advisor: Michel Barsoum), Ph.D. candidate Olha
Mashtalir (bottom right, advisor: Yury Gogotsi),
B.S. student Joshua Carle, former research
professor Volker Presser, and Dr. Jun Lu and
Professor Lars Hultman from Linköping University,
are recipients of the 2013 American Ceramic
Society’s (ACerS) Ross Coffin Purdy Award. This
award is given to the author(s) “judged to have
made the most valuable contribution to ceramic
technical literature during the calendar year prior
to the selection.” The ACerS Board unanimously
approved the award subcommittee’s selection of
Barsoum and Gogotsi et al. for their article “TwoDimensional Transition Metal Carbides” published
in ACS Nano, Vol. 6, No. 2, 1322-1331,
2012.
This achievement was recognized Monday,
October 28, 2013 at the ACerS Honors and
Awards Banquet during the Materials Science
and Technology Conference which took place
October 27-31, 2013 in Montréal, Quebec,
Canada.
May and Baxter Receive Funding to Develop Complex Oxides for Solar Energy Conversion
Assistant professor Steven May (pictured)
of the Department of Materials Science and
Engineering and Jason Baxter, affiliated faculty member of materials and assistant professor
in the Department of Chemical and Biological
Engineering, have been awarded a grant from the
National Science Foundation for “Photoexcited
Carrier Dynamics in Oxide Semiconductors for
Photovoltaics.”
24
The budget for the three-year project is
$380,000 (ECCS-1201957).
Semiconductors made from transition metal
oxides are earth-abundant, consist largely of nontoxic elements, and have electronic and optical
properties that can be engineered. While this
combination of properties makes complex oxides
promising candidates for applications in photovoltaics and photocatalysis, a detailed fundamental
understanding of how to optimize complex oxides
for solar energy application is lacking. Using a
combined approach of advanced materials synthesis and ultrafast optical spectroscopy, May and
Baxter will identify promising routes to improve
the material properties
that are most critical
for solar-based applications. In doing so, this
project will contribute
critical insights needed
for the development of
a new generation of
oxide-based solar energy conversion devices.
Materials Receives Department of Education GAANN
Grant for Innovative Biomaterials
The Department of Materials Science and
Engineering has been awarded a three-year
$533,000 Department of Education Graduate
Assistance in Areas of National Need (GAANN)
grant, led by PI Professor Michele Marcolongo,
professor Antonios Zavaliangos, and associate professor Caroline Schauer (co-PIs).
Operations Manager Dorilona Rose also
contributed to this proposal and will help to oversee the administration of the grant.
GAANN BIOMSE: Innovative Biomaterials
is targeted at providing education for doctoral
students majoring in materials science and engineering with a focus on synthetic biomaterials for
medical devices, drug delivery for controlled release of pharmaceuticals, molecular engineering
for tissue restoration,
and tissue scaffolds
for 3-D cellular engineering. GAANN
Fellowships provide
need-based
financial
support to Ph.D. students
pursuing a degree in a field of
study identified as an area of national need.
Barsoum’s and Gogotsi’s Discovery of MXenes
Featured in Chemical & Engineering News
The work of A. W. Grosvenor
Professor Michel Barsoum and
Distinguished University and Trustee
Chair Professor Yury Gogotsi and
their team of researchers was featured in the October 8, 2012 issue
of Chemical & Engineering News
(C&EN).
Their discovery of a new class of 2-D materials
last year, which they dubbed MXenes, was part of
a cover story in C&EN on the recent discovery of
several different types of 2-D materials. The article
describes the process by which the researchers
discovered MXenes and the potential these materials have for new technologies.
SEM image of the exfoliated layers of two-dimensional Ti3C2 layers called MXene. Exfoliation of Ti3AlC2 is accomplished by etching the aluminum out from the structure, which results in 2-D layers of Ti3C2. The gold fish on the image is 12μm long.
Winner of Nano Today front cover competition 2012, Nano Today, Vol 7, No. 1, February 2012.
Image credit: Babak Anasori, Michael Naguib, Yury Gogotsi and Michel W. Barsoum (MAX phase group and
Drexel Nanotechnology Institute), Zeiss Supra 50VP SEM in Drexel University’s Core Facilities.
25
MAJOR RESEARCH INITIATIVES & ACTIVITIES
NSF Features Gogotsi’s Sepsis Treatment Research on LiveScience
Sepsis treatment advances by Distinguished
University and Trustee Chair Professor Yury
Gogotsi, former research professor Volker
Presser, and former postdoc Sun-Hwa
Yeon were selected by the National Science
Foundation for feature on the science news website livescience.com.
Sepsis, also known as blood poisoning, occurs when an infection triggers the body to react
with severe inflammation. In 40-60% of cases, the
condition is fatal. Gogotsi, Presser, and Yeon developed a filtration system of mesoporous carbons
derived from silicon carbide-based ceramics
that are highly effective at removing excess
cytokines which build up in the blood as
sepsis progresses, which in turn allows more
time for antibiotics and other drugs to take effect,
improving survival rates. This NSF sponsored
work was also featured in a cover article in the
November 2012 issue of Advanced Healthcare
Materials.
26
electro-optical response to the “amount” of
polar displacements at the unit cell level in
the crystal. The new structure-based approach
to tailoring the optical properties of materials
provides a novel platform to design materials
at the atomic scale with targeted macroscopic
responses. The generation of intense coherent
deep-UV light from nonlinear optical materials
is crucial to applications ranging from semiconductor photolithography and laser micromachining to photochemical synthesis.
Additionally, Rondinelli collaborated with researchers at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory
to publish synthesis and characterization studies
A new deep-UV NLO material, Ba4B11O20F is obtained by
introduction of fluorine atoms in a barium borate system to
generate large polar atomic displacements that Rondinelli
and collaborators identify to be responsible for the SHG
response—it is approximately 10X that of KH2PO4 and is
the largest of borates containing neither lone pair active
ions nor second-order Jahn-Teller active transition metals.
which describe how to stabilize new phases in ferroelectric materials by heteroepitaxial engineering
in Advanced Materials. The article, “Interplay of
Octahedral Tilts and Polar Order in BiFeO3 Films,”
Remarkably, the phase is metastable and can be
switched into a polar ferroelectric state under an
applied electric bias. The work offers new insight
for the rational design of ferroic phases in materials for use in low-power electronics.
Study of New Two-Dimensional Carbide
Published in Europhysics Letters
Ph.D. student Nina Lane (advisors: Michel
Barsoum and James Rondinelli), A. W. Grosvenor
Professor Michel Barsoum, and assistant
professor James Rondinelli reported a firstprinciples study of a new 5d two-dimensional carbide with a graphene-like lattice and semi-metallic
behavior in Europhysics Letters.
Rondinelli Work Featured in the
Journal of the American Chemical
Society and Advanced Materials
Professor
James
Rondinelli
and
colleagues
at
Northwestern University
and Xinjiang Technical
Institute of Physics &
Chemistry reported a
structure-based design strategy for second harmonic generating crystals with large responses in
the Journal of the American Chemical Society.
The article, titled “Designing a Deep Ultraviolet
Nonlinear Optical Material with Large SHG
Response,” describes a new atomic structure
acentricity descriptor and links the macroscopic
demonstrates that a distinct nonpolar BiFeO3
phase emerges simultaneously with changes
in octahedral tilts at an oxide–oxide interface.
Their article, “Correlation effects and spin-orbit
interactions in two-dimensional hexagonal 5d
transition metal carbides, Tan+1Cn (n=1, 2, 3),”
describes how the dimensionality of the pristine
sheets due to changes in polyhedral stacking
alters the electron–electron interactions and the
stability of long-range magnetic order. These
low-dimensional carbide materials with heavy
transition metal cations offer a new route to incorporate magnetism for novel spin-based electronics without the need for post-processing surface
functionalization.
The two-dimensional Tan+1Cn (n = 1,2,3) (left), and
their corresponding electronic band structures.
Journal Covers Feature Drexel Materials Research
Professor Christopher Li and Ph.D. student
Eric Laird published an invited perspective
cover piece on “Structure and Morphology
Control in Crystalline Polymer-Carbon Nanotube
Nanocomposites” in the April 2013 issue of
Reprinted with permission from Macromolecules 2013,
46, 2877-2891.
Copyright 2013 American Chemical Society.
Macromolecules, the leading journal in polymer
science. The perspective presents the recent
progresses on the structure, morphology, and related applications of semicrystalline polymer-CNT
nanocomposites, work of particular significance
from the Soft Materials Lab over the past eight
years.
27
MAJOR RESEARCH
INITIATIVES & ACTIVITIES
Sepsis treatment advances by Distinguished
University and Trustee Chair Professor Yury
Gogotsi, former research professor Volker
Presser, and former postdoc Sun-Hwa Yeon
were featured in the cover article “Cytokine
Removal: Hierarchical Porous Carbide-Derived
Carbons for the Removal of Cytokines from
Blood Plasma” in the November 2012 issue of
Advanced Healthcare Materials.
Hoeganaes Assistant Professor of Metallurgy
Mitra Taheri, Ph.D. candidates Christopher
R. Winkler and Michael L. Jablonski,
and colleagues from the University of Illinois,
Urbana-Champaign published a cover piece on
“Accessing Intermediate Ferroelectric Switching
Regimes with Time-Resolved Transmission Electron
Microscopy” in the September 2012 issue of the
Journal of Applied Physics. The piece reports the
authors’ use of in situ transmission electron microscopy to study the dynamics of ferroelectric domains
in BiFeO3 and other ferroelectric materials. These
biasing experiments provide a real-time view of
the complex dynamics of domain
switching and complement scanningprobe techniques,
allowing a better
understanding of
the dynamics of
ferroelectric switching,
particularly
in the vicinity
of extended
defects, that
is needed to
incorporate
BiFeO3
into
novel spintronics
devices
and sensors.
Breast Cancer Detection Sensor Developed at Drexel
Receives Grant from Pennsylvania Department of Health
Professor Wei-Heng Shih, in conjunction with affiliated faculty member Dr. Wan
Shih in the School of Biomedical Engineering,
Science and Health Systems, and Dr. Ari Brooks,
chief of surgical oncology at Drexel’s College
of Medicine, has received a $878,422 grant
from the Pennsylvania Department of Health’s
Commonwealth Universal Research Enhancement
(CURE) program to further commercialize and
Volker Presser, Sun-Hwa Yeon, Cekdar
Vakifahmetoglu, Carol A. Howell, Susan
R. Sandeman, Paolo Colombo, Sergey
Mikhalovsky, Yury Gogotsi: Cytokine Removal:
Hierarchical Porous Carbide-Derived Carbons
for the Removal of Cytokines from Blood Plasma.
Advanced Healthcare Materials. 2012. 1.
682. Copyright Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH &
Co. KGaA. Reproduced with permission.
Inset, bottom left: In-situ probing of
domain switching in BiFeO3 by transmission electron microscopy (image by M.
Taheri & C. Winkler, sample by A.R.
Damodaran, J. Karthik, & L.W. Martin,
UIUC). Reprinted with permission
from J. Appl. Phys. 112, 051901.
Copyright 2012, AIP Publishing LLC.
Li Receives NSF Grant for Polymer Crystallization at Curved Liquid/Liquid Interface
Professor Christopher Li has been awarded
a four-year $488,000 National Science
Foundation Division of Materials Research grant
for his project “Polymer Crystallization at Curved
Liquid/Liquid Interface.”
28
Curved space is incommensurate with typical
ordered structures with three-dimensional (3D)
translational symmetry. In this project, Li proposes
to investigate packing crystalline polymer chains
in a curved incommensurate space using an emulsion-solution crystallization method. If successful,
the well-controlled single- or multiple-component
ensembles will not only shed light on using
polymeric capsules for drug delivery and gene
therapeutics, they can also be extremely useful for
applications such as catalysis, surface enhanced
Raman spectroscopy, and artificial nanomotors.
clinically validate a sensor to aid in the early
detection of breast cancer.
“Intelligent Breast Exam” (iBE™) uses piezoelectric finger technology to glean more accurate information from routine breast examinations. After a
series of clinical tests, it could become a valuable
tool for physicians in the early detection of breast
cancer. UE LifeSciences Inc., a Philadelphiabased startup, licensed the technology in 2010.
Spanier, May, and Baxter Receive DURIP
Professor Jonathan Spanier (PI), with
co-PIs assistant professor Steven May and
assistant professor Jason Baxter (Chemical
& Biological Engineering) received funding for
“Laser sources for characterization of functional
oxide materials” from the US Army Research
Piezoelectric finger sensor technology developed at
Drexel is being integrated into the Intelligent Breast
Exam (iBE™) technology at UE LifeSciences.
Office and the Department of Defense under the
DURIP program.
The new instrumentation, which includes a
diode-pumped solid state and tunable Ti:S laser
with frequency doubling, is being used to investigate the optical and optoelectronic properties
of oxides, including luminescence and resonant
Raman scattering. In particular, it is being used
to study the photovoltaic properties of new ecologically-friendly earth-abundant element oxides
for high-efficiency solar energy conversion. The
award received is approximately $198,000.
Computational Materials Science: Building Multidisciplinary
Efforts to Advance Materials Discovery
The Materials Genome Initiative (MGI) is a
national program aimed at accelerating the discovery of advanced materials and reducing by
half the time to integrate and deploy them into
energy, medical, security, and communication
technologies. Within this framework, the early
stages of materials development rely on harnessing available computational science tools to (i)
formulate materials structure–property–functionality
29
Special Highlights
Page Title
databases from a plethora of diverse data, and (ii)
establish protocols to search through that data to
(iii) efficiently guide the selection of materials for
synthesis and subsequent integration. The ultimate
aim is to render serendipitous discoveries obsolete
and, in turn, make rational or predictive materials
discovery-by-design the gold standard, reducing
both costs and time to discovery.
In the December 2013 issue of The Bulletin of
the American Ceramic Society, assistant professor James Rondinelli and colleagues from
across the United States articulate in their article,
“Accelerating Functional Materials Discovery:
Insights from Geological Sciences, Data-driven
Approaches, and Computational Advances,” that
advances in materials discovery will greatly benefit from unconventional multidisciplinary efforts
(J.M. Rondinelli, N.A. Benedek, D.E.
Freedman, A. Kavner, E.E. Rodriguez,
E.S. Toberer, and L.W. Martin,
Accelerating
Functional
Materials
Discovery: Insights from Geological
Sciences, Data-driven Approaches, and
Computational Advances, American
Ceramic Society Bulletin, 93 x-y
(2013)). Rondinelli and co-authors,
joined by colleagues in the physical
sciences, in particular petrologists, geochemists, mineral physicists, and information scientists were motivated to write
this article after participating in an NSFsponsored workshop in February 2012
on the MGI in Ceramics, Geosciences,
and Solid-State Chemistry.
Growing Philly Materials Day Highlighted in Print and Web Articles
The October 2012 issue of MRS
Bulletin featured the article “Drexel hosts
Philly Materials Day” by Ph.D. student
Steven Spurgeon (advisor: Mitra
Taheri).
Schematic of the Earth as a synthetic vessel
with minerals forming in different regions
highlighted. Each mineral phase selected for this
figure is also synthesized in laboratories for their
unusual properties and applications under controlled
environments that mimic geological conditions.
Drexel Materials Expands Social Media Presence
30
Follow us on Twitter @DrexelMaterials and like us on Facebook (www.facebook.com/drexelmaterials) to receive timely departmental news and
fascinating materials related links. Additionally, joining our LinkedIn group is a great way to get materials networking and job opportunities and stay in touch with other
alumni and friends of Drexel Materials. You can link to all of our social media sites from the homepage of our website @ www.materials.drexel.edu.
Hands-on demonstrations such
as making slime and liquid
nitrogen ice cream are two of
the many ways the wonder of
materials science is explored
at Philly Materials Day.
Spurgeon’s article describes the planning and execution of the day-long festivities, which seek to educate and excite
people of all ages about the intriguing
world of materials science. The article
includes a quote from associate department head Richard Knight, the event’s
emcee, saying, “The age-old problem we
find is that people have no concept of what
materials science and engineering is, but once you explain and show people,
they have a better idea. They begin to realize then that everything is made of
materials and there’s a reason why we choose the materials we do.”
Philly Materials Day was also featured in an article posted to the Materials
Research Society’s (MRS) Science Enthusiasts website and Materials360 Online
in March 2013.
The article details the success of Philly Materials Day 2013 and the history of this three-year collaboration between Drexel University, the University of
Pennsylvania, and the Franklin Institute. The 2013 Philly Materials Day brought
over 2000 people to Drexel University’s Bossone Research Enterprise Center for
a day of hands-on materials science and engineering fun.
Planning for the 2014 Philly Materials Day, scheduled for February 1, 2014,
is now underway. More information can be found at
www.phillymaterials.org.
For a Second Year, Summer Institute Offers High School
Students Materials Research Opportunities
The Drexel Material Science and Engineering Summer Institute, run by teaching associate professor Christopher Weyant, provides hands-on research
experience for high school students through week-long sessions focused on
biotechnology, electronics, and energy with the integration of nanoscience and
sustainability throughout. This year, the program expanded from one session to
two, and increased enrollment from 16 to 28 students from Pennsylvania and
New Jersey. Students accepted into the program demonstrate their aptitude for
science and engineering through excellent performance in math and science
courses, quality recommendations, and an essay related to their viewpoint on
materials science and engineering. Each week
culminates in group presentations focused on
two primary experiments in electrospinning of
nanofibers and fabrication and evaluation of
dye-sensitized solar cells.
To learn more about the Summer Institute,
visit www.materials.drexel.edu/
programs/summerinstitute.
High school students acquire hands-on materials
research experience during the Summer Institute.
31
40 Years of MATE 100: The Materials Two-Day Course
For most Drexel Materials majors, their earliest
memories of the department coincide with MATE
100 or one of its earlier incarnations: a two-day
freshman materials introductory course held the
week before the official start of the term. Besides
the perk of getting to move into the dorms early,
students get the opportunity to become familiar
with their new major, or potential major, as well as
faculty, staff, and fellow students, all while earning
two credits to add to their transcripts.
This year marks the 40th year of the course,
now called “Materials for Emerging Technologies,”
so we checked in with alumni, former department
head Dr. Alan Lawley, and former staff member Judy
Trachtman for reminiscences about
the course and its
beginnings.
A 2013 MATE 100
participant shows off
her foam creation.
32
Dr.
Lawley
recalls that the
need
for
the
course stemmed
from
dwindling
enrollment in the
then Department
of Metallurgical
Engineering and
a lack of information given to high
school
students
about materials
and their importance in today’s society (the latter
still a challenge today). The course was conceived
of by popular Professor George Smiernow, whom
Dr. Lawley describes as speaking with “a mix of
English and American, spiced with a strong Russian
accent.”
The course began as a three-day intro, later
reduced to two. The first few years put a heavy
emphasis on metals; ceramics, polymers, and other
evolving areas of materials science and engineering began to appear in the course in subsequent
years. The course originally was limited to 30-40
students; today we have limited the course to 125
participants and frequently have a wait list.
Judy speaks of the logistical challenges—figuring out what, and how, to charge and organize
housing with residential living, order food, notify
potential students, and find out how to give the two
credits to the participants. Students checked into the
dorms the day before the start of the course and at
the conclusion of the first day, the movie “The Man
in the White Suit” was shown—a satirical comedy
starring Alec Guinness and featuring the allure and
hazards of materials science and engineering at
the heart of the movie.
While we’ve replaced Dr. Lawley’s Birmingham,
UK banter with Dr. Rick Knight’s English patter, today’s course has much the same structure as it did
in its infancy. It features lectures from our faculty
about the emerging areas of materials as well as
hands-on labs run by our graduate students to give
bright eyed new freshmen a chance to immerse
themselves in the lab and get a taste of research.
Lunches are an opportunity for students to mingle
among themselves and talk one-on-one with faculty.
Current and former students frequently identify
the two-day course as their reason for majoring in
materials science and engineering. Whatever the
reason for taking the course, it has become an integral part of the beginning of the fall here in Drexel
Materials.
“I took the MATE 100 two-day materials course in
the fall of 1975 before the term started. [Editor’s
note: this was the year the department became
the Department of Materials Engineering.] I was
an incoming freshman with no idea what type of
engineering I would study. I still had a very foggy
understanding of engineering as I started my university experience. The course led by Professor Alan
Lawley really excited me and opened my eyes to
the field of materials. The projects were quite fun
and there was camaraderie. I recall sitting with the
faculty and other students over the bag lunches. It
was all so new to me, but I liked the atmosphere of
the department. We were required to take the intro courses for several types of engineering the first
year. But by the end of the year, I knew I wanted to
be a Materials Engineer. During my time at Drexel,
I became quite interested in polymers. Polymers
were dwarfed at the time by the metallurgy focus
of the department. Professor Roger Corneliussen
helped me extensively, and enabled me to get into
graduate school at Northwestern University, again
studying polymer physics within materials science.
(Top to bottom) Ph.D. students Michael Ghidiu and Darin Tallman assist a MATE 100 student to
prepare a Prince Rupert’s drop by dripping molten glass from a stir rod into water. An annual
MATE 100 favorite—making foam. Ph.D. alumnus (2008) Kishore Tenneti leads this group in
the slime and foam demos in 2003. A 2013 two-day course participant pours liquid nitrogen
at the liquid nitrogen ice cream demo.
The two-day materials engineering
course started my path into materials
science. Having the course before
I saw any of the other types of engineering (mechanical, chemical,
civil…) certainly was an advantage for
materials!”
–– Dr. Paul Howard, B.S. 1980
Research Director for Chemistry,
Schlumberger, Cambridge, UK
“35 years ago I was a naïve 17-yearold, who liked math and science but
didn’t know what he wanted to do
with his life. After the MATE 100
course, I was certain that I wanted to
be a Materials Engineer. I have spent
the last 30 years putting into practice
the concepts that were introduced in
that course, and I have loved every
minute of it.
My favorite memory of the course was
Dr. Alan Lawley’s Joke of the Day. I still
use some of the jokes that he told at the
beginning of each class.”
–– Don Byrnes, B.S. 1983
“I had never heard of materials science
as a field of its own before MATE 100,
but the course gave me an idea of
the huge variety of materials research
Another
2003
photo of
a foam
demo.
techniques, approaches,
and fields of application.
Actually seeing all the
labs, equipment, and enthusiastic researchers really impressed
on me that, in this department, smart
people were actively chasing down
answers to interesting and important
questions in fields as diverse as medicine, aerospace, and nanotechnology. This broad range of materials
impact became the reason I joined
the Materials department and made
materials science and engineering my
major freshman year. Even now, as
a pre-junior, I keep realizing it was
MATE 100 that first introduced me to
graduate students and professors in the
department with whom I have found
myself researching. In a way, seeing
materials science shown off at the
two-day course was a first step on my
path to becoming a materials scientist
myself, and someday adding to the
materials knowledge and inventions to
be displayed to entice the next generation of potential materials science
students.”
–– Laura Allan
B.S./M.S. Student
Class of 2016
“I took the course in 1976 (I do believe
the Periodic Chart was pretty well filled
out then). To this day, I can remember
first learning why aluminum foil is shiny
on one side and dull on the other!!!”
–– Frank Zimone, B.S. 1980; M.S.
1983
“So many memories! I remember a student who hadn’t had breakfast passed
out during one of the labs. I once had
to pull Alan [Lawley] out of his lecture
because the roof of his house was on
fire!”
–– Judy Trachtman, Former Staff
Member
“For my part, I flirted with fame as a
late night TV comedian by relating the
story of the ‘spherical chicken’ and the
annual spring festival on ‘shin-kicking’
in the United Kingdom!”
–– Dr. Alan Lawley, Professor
Emeritus and Former Department
Head
33
Thank You To Our Donors
Supporting Materials
page text
The Department of Materials Science and Engineering gratefully acknowledges its donors. Your generosity benefits both current and future materials students and
faculty, reaching well beyond the classroom and lab.
If you are interested in making a financial or non-financial contribution to the department, please visit:
www.materials.drexel.edu/support
Individual Donors
Mrs. Aileen M. Ather
Steven May, Ph.D.
Dr. Jonathan Ayutsede
Mr. Michael J. McDermott
Mr. Dmitri Alexander Bohn
Mr. Michael J. Micklus
Dr. Hao Cheng
Mr. Michael J. Pechulis
Dr. John F. Copeland
Frederick E. Schmidt, Jr., Ph.D.
Mr. Joseph R. Cauvin
Mr. Edwin P. Stankiewicz
Dr. George E. Dieter, Jr.
Robert A. Swift, Ph.D.
Ms. Keiko Nakazawa Glover
Dr. Mitra Taheri
Dr. Richard Knight
Mr. James R. Whetstone, Jr.
Ms. Sarit Kunz
Mr. Walter T. Young
Hoa Lam, Ph.D.
Dr. Antonios Zavaliangos
Ms. Yenneeka Long
34
The Materials Endowment Fund
The Anne L. Stevens Endowed Scholarship Fund
The Department of Materials Science and Engineering Endowment Fund
supports undergraduate and graduate student fellowships and faculty development. This past year, $1,500 in funds were awarded to Emily Buck (advisor: Caroline Schauer), Tianjiao Cai, and Nasreen Khan (advisor: Christopher Li).
Another scholarship available to our students is the Anne L. Stevens Endowed Scholarship Fund, which provides financial support to female students
in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering who demonstrate academic merit and financial need. The scholarship was established in 2007 with
a generous gift from Stevens (’80) and the Lockheed Martin Corporation Directors Charitable Award Fund. The Anne L. Stevens Endowed Scholarship Fund
has given $154,575 in awards since its inception in 2007. This year, awards
were given to Laura Allan (advisor: Yury Gogotsi), Madeline Bouchard, Emma
Foley, Brittany Gallagher, Emily Holcombe (advisor: Mitra Taheri), Gabrielle
Housel (advisor: Yury Gogotsi), Jessica Kennelly, Sarah Lightfoot Vidal (advisor:
Michele Marcolongo), Brittany Pattinson (advisor: Jonathan Spanier), Amanda
Pentecost (advisor: Yury Gogotsi), Elaine Ruiz (advisor: Antonios Zavaliangos),
and Amanda Toth (advisor: Caroline Schauer).
The A. W. Grosvenor Scholarship Fund
The A. W. Grosvenor Scholarship Fund supports tuition for undergraduate
students. $7,538 from the A. W. Grosvenor Scholarship Fund was awarded to Eric Angell, Jacob Horejs, Travis Longenbach (advisor: Yury
Gogotsi), and Elaine Ruiz (advisor: Antonios Zavaliangos).
The Koczak Scholarship Fund
Corporate Donors
Boeing, Inc.
When you send a financial contribution to Drexel, please be sure to designate your contribution to “Materials Science and Engineering.” Possible avenues for contribution include:
Thermal Spray Depot, LLC
If you have donated to MSE in FY 2013 and are not listed or are listed erroneously, we apologize for the oversight.
Please contact us if you have any corrections to your listing or wish to be recognized in future publications.
The Koczak Scholarship Fund provides tuition support for undergraduate
students. Matthew Nelson (advisor: Yury Gogotsi) received $1,817 in
funding.
35
Drexel University
Department of
Materials Science
and Engineering
2012-2013
Annual Report
News Editors
Leslie Anastasio
Dorilona Rose
Layout & Design
Andrew Marx
Cover Image Credits
1. B.S./M.S. student Pelin Kansu adds substrate for
an Elisa like assay with a multi-channel pipette.
Photo credit: Victoria Edwards.
2. SEM of layered MXene along with added illustration of intercalated ions between layers. Original
image credit: M. Lukatskaya, Y. Dall’Agnese,
E.Ren, Y. Gogotsi.
3. What looks like red astroturf is actually how tiny
carbon nanotubes template macromolecular
chains upon crystallization of the latter, forming
nano-hybrid shish kebabs, a new class of hybrid
materials. Credit: Professor Christopher Li and
Ph.D. candidate Eric Laird of the Soft Materials Lab.
1
2
4
3
5
7
6
9
8
4. Participants at our annual ASM International
Materials Camp test their composite bridges with
Dr. Rick Knight (in yellow shirt).
10
11
5. This image of dancing rubber balls is actually the electron localization function (ELF) for the rationally designed
benign polar material Ba4B11O20F, which exhibits a large second harmonic generation that may soon find application in non-linear optical technologies, such as in lasers, optical signal processing, and biological imaging. Credit:
Professor James Rondinelli and the Materials Theory and Design Group.
6. A young participant gets a hand from Ph.D. student Jake McDonough on mixing up liquid nitrogen prepared ice
cream at Philly Materials Day 2013.
7.
NSF Graduate Research Fellow Kelsey Hatzell uses a coprecipitation method to make manganese oxide to use as
the flowable electrode material in the Electrochemical Flow Capacitor, a technology for grid energy storage. Photo
credit: Victoria Edwards.
8.
Ph.D. student James Nathaniel prepares a thin film sample. Photo credit: Victoria Edwards.
3141 Chestnut Street
LeBow 344
Philadelphia, PA 19104
9. Two-dimensional Ti3C2 layers called MXene. This image is a combination of three separate Scanning Electron
Microscope (SEM) images on MXene particles (Turtle, Butterfly, and the cave). The width of the cave is about 3µm.
Award: Second Place in “Science as Art” competition in MRS Fall 2012. Credit: Babak Anasori, Michael Naguib,
Yury Gogotsi and Michel W. Barsoum (MAX phase group and Drexel Nanotechnology Institute), Zeiss Supra 50VP
SEM in Drexel University’s Centralized Research Facilities (CRF).
Phone 215.895.2323
Fax 215.895.6760
Web www.materials.drexel.edu
Email materials@coe.drexel.edu
10. Fluorescently-stained biomimetic aggrecan (developed in the Marcolongo Lab) has been injected into intervertebral
tissue and shows uniform distribution within the tissue resulting in molecularly engineering the intervertebral disc. This
strategy is being explored as an injection to alleviate early disc degeneration leading to back pain. (Image taken by
Sarah Lightfoot Vidal, B.S./M.S. 2013)
11. Getting suited up for the popular slime demo at Philly Materials Day 2013.