May 2009 | UW MSE

MSE plans to upgrade undergraduate learning labs

The department plans to raise $200,000 in private giving to upgrade the 20-year-old undergraduate learning labs. If the campaign is successful, these funds would be matched with $50,000 from the UW’s College of Engineering.

April 2009 | UW News

Stinging cancer with nanoscience

By combining nanoparticles with a scorpion venom compound already being investigated for treating brain cancer, UW researchers led by Miqin Zhang found they could cut the spread of cancerous cells by 98 percent, compared to 45 percent for the scorpion venom alone.

February 2009 | Xconomy

Jen poised to launch Soluxra thin-film solar cell company

Alex Jen and colleagues plan to launch Soluxra in the summer. The company will specialize in thin-film polymer solar cells. The semi-transparent plastic films, which Jen said can be printed in a similar process to newspaper printing, are highly adaptable.

December 2008 | KUOW

Sarikaya discusses biomimetics with KUOW

Mehmet Sarikaya, UW professor of materials science and engineering, discussed biomimetics on Dec. 17 with KUOW's Steve Scher and author Janine Benyus on the "Weekday" program on KUOW 94.9 FM radio.

December 2008 | UW MSE

Bull's eye on bringing clean energy to developing world

Tricia Bull, fellow MSE doctoral student Brad Macleod and eight students from other U.S. universities visited Kanpur, India in December 2008 to study organic optoelectronics such as OPVs in an intensive two-week program called the International Winter School for Graduate Students (iWSG).

December 2008 | UW MSE

Christine Luscombe teaches write stuff

Christine Luscombe is using part of the $495,000 CAREER Award she received from the National Science Foundation in early 2008 to develop a writing program for seniors in her “Introduction to Polymer Science and Engineering” class.

November 2008 | UW MSE

MSE teams with Intel on organic photovoltaics

Intel Research Seattle and three MSE professors are collaborating on a project to improve the efficiency and stability of organic photovoltaics, a promising technology that may one day help meet the world’s growing demand for energy.

November 2008 | UW MSE

Jen named Fellow of ACS PMSE Division

Alex Jen, MSE chair, has been named a Fellow of the American Chemical Society’s Polymeric Materials Science and Engineering (PMSE) Division. Fellows of PMSE are selected based on their significant contributions to the science and engineering of polymeric materials.

October 2008 | UW MSE

Brush receives NSF grant to research metallic foams

Lucien Brush is a principal investigator on a collaborative research project funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) to understand and predict the behavior of metallic foams. The project is titled “Dynamics and Stability of Metallic Foams: Network Modeling.”

October 2008 | UW MSE

Bordia elected to ACerS Board of Directors

Raj Bordia has been elected to the American Ceramic Society's (ACerS) Board of Directors. Bordia began his two-year term in October 2008. "I am honored to be selected to this important position by my peers," Bordia said.

October 2008 | UW MSE

Krishnan named Magnetics Society Distinguished Lecturer

Kannan M. Krishnan has been named the Distinguished Lecturer for 2009 by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Magnetics Society. Lecturers are selected for their outstanding achievements in magnetics research and excellent communication skills.

August 2008 | UW MSE

MSE welcomes Marco Rolandi

Marco Rolandi joined the faculty in August 2008 as an assistant professor, bringing the department his finely-tuned curiosity in nanoscale phenomena. Rolandi comes to UW from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the University of California, Berkeley, where he worked as a postdoctoral research fellow since 2005.

May 2008 | MRS Bulletin

Sarikaya co-edits MRS Bulletin on molecular biomimetics

Mehmet Sarikaya and Candan Tamerler, chair of the Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics at Istanbul Technical University (ITU), co-edited the May 2008 issue of the Material Research Society’s MRS Bulletin. The topic of the special issue is molecular biomimetics.

April 2008 | UW MSE

NIMS opens Overseas Operation Office at the UW

Japan’s National Institute of Materials Science (NIMS) opened an Overseas Operation Office in April 2008 in the UW Roosevelt Commons Building, establishing UW as an international crossroads for materials research and development.

April 2008 | UW MSE

UW receives $900,000 Solar America Initiative grant

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) plans to invest $900,000 in solar energy research at the UW as part of the Solar America Initiative (SAI), which aims to make solar energy cost-competitive with conventional sources of electricity by 2015. “We plan to use interfacial engineering to improve the efficiency of polymer-based photovoltaic devices,” said Alex Jen, MSE chair.

April 2008 | UW MSE

Krishnan receives Rockefeller Foundation residency

Kannan M. Krishnan has been named the recipient of a prestigious Rockefeller Foundation Scholarly Residency at the Bellagio Center in Lake Como, Italy. Krishnan’s one-month residency will begin on Monday, Sept. 22, 2008. The Rockefeller Foundation chooses scholars who have demonstrated a history of significant achievement in their respective fields. More...

April 2008 | UW MSE

Bordia receives Humboldt Research Award

Raj Bordia, UW professor of materials science and engineering, has been awarded a Humboldt Research Award for senior scientists by Germany’s Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. The international honor, one of the most prestigious given by Germany, recognizes Bordia’s career accomplishments in materials science and engineering.

April 2008 | UW MSE

Luscombe wins DARPA Young Faculty Award

Christine Luscombe won a Young Faculty Award from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to support her research on organic photovoltaic devices. Luscombe, one of 39 researchers nationwide to win a Young Faculty Award in 2008, will receive $150,000 to support her research group.

April 2008 | UW News

Popcorn-ball design doubles solar cell efficiency

A new approach is able to create a dramatic improvement in cheap solar cells now being developed in laboratories. By using a popcorn-ball design -- tiny kernels clumped into much larger porous spheres -- UW researchers led by Guozhong Cao are able to manipulate light and more than double the efficiency of converting solar energy to electricity.

February 2008 | UW MSE

Micron invests additional $775,000 in materials research lab

Micron invested an additional $775,000 in the Micron Laboratory for Combinatorial Materials Exploration at UW in February. The funds will help the lab pursue its goal to test new combinations of materials for use in smaller and smaller microchips.

January 2008 | UW MSE

Luscombe wins $495,000 CAREER Award from NSF

Christine Luscombe, UW assistant professor of materials science and engineering, won a five-year, $495,000 CAREER Award from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to support her research on organic polymers. Luscombe’s work holds promise for improving electronic displays, solar cells and more.