Purdue Materials Engineering student, Abigail Gentry, won 3rd place in the Best Student Poster competition at the American Society for Engineering Education’s IN/IL regional conference! She is pictured with her post-doc mentor, Gaurav Nanda.

This award honors those MRS members who are notable for their distinguished research accomplishments and their outstanding contributions to the advancement of materials research, world-wide. It is given to the top 0.2% of the members in MRS. Dr. Wang specializes in thin film epitaxy, nanocomposite designs and functional materials for high temperature superconductors, solid oxide fuel cells, multiferroics, spintronics, plasmonics and optics. She is also a Fellow of APS, AAAS, ASM and ACerS.

ARTIFICIAL NEURON: The MRS Bulletin Materials News Podcast recently featured Professor Shriram Ramanathan for his work in creating an artificial neuron that can precisely mimic the behavior of normal and faulty neurons in the brain. This research could have important implications for neuroscience.

MSE junior, Brandon Wells, won the Undergraduate Materials Processing and Manufacturing Division poster competition at this year's TMS Conference in San Antonio! Brandon works as an Undergraduate Research Assistant with Professor Carlos Martinez.

NEW LEAD-FREE BRONZE: MSE Professor, Kevin Trumble, led a research team that has found alternative lead-free bronze alloys for use in water valves and plumbing systems.

Global Initiative Mines Retired Hard Disk Drives for Materials and Magnets
Late last year, Google received six hard disk drives from Seagate: brand new, save for their rare-earth magnets. The magnets had already spent one life in Google’s data centers and were headed for a second one.

Gas turbine engines, the driving force behind the airplanes we fly and the electricity flowing through our power grids, are among the world’s most complex machines. They contain some of the world’s strongest materials, such as nickel-based superalloys. How might the engines be improved if these heat-resistant components could be made even stronger?

Do you wish the battery in your electronic devices would last longer? MSE Professor, Edwin Garcia, and doctoral student, Suryanarayana Karra Vikrant, have developed a new theory that could allow industry to improve the performance of ionic ceramics fo rechargeable batteries, fuel cells and other energy applications.

Poly Group LLC and Croda Inc. announced Feb. 25 they have entered into a marketing agreement that will result in the availability of antimicrobial coatings and paints.

This prestigious award supports early-career faculty who have the potential to serve as academic role models in research and education. This award will fund superalloy research to uncover the fundamental, atomistic-level processes governing high temperature strength in model metallic materials.