Materials Science and Engineering News

We are excited to announce that a talented team from MTU has secured 1st place at the prestigious 2025 ASM Materials Education Foundation G.B. Olson Undergraduate Design Competition with their project “The Effect of Cerium on Sensitization and Weld Strength in 5xxx Series Aluminum Alloys.” The team included: Molly Wrobleski – Team Lead & Modelling, Brooke Ziolkowski – Welding & Stats, Leo Sauter …

Jaroslaw Drelich (MSE/IMP) is the principal investigator (PI) on a project that has received a $461,657 research and development grant from the National Institutes of Health. The project is titled “Novel Bioresorbable Vascular Scaffolds with Uniform Biodegradation.” Jeremy Goldman (BioMed/IMP) is a co-PI on this project. Jaroslaw W. Drelich holds the Richard Witte Endowed Professorship in the Dep…

LIFT, short for Lightweight Innovations for Tomorrow, is a nonprofit organization established through a partnership with the U.S. Department of Defense, academia, and private industry. Its multifaceted mission includes training workers for high-tech manufacturing jobs, advancing defense-related technology, and preparing more companies to deal in the technology that would qualify them as defense c…

Landfill mining can recover valuable recyclable materials, including aluminum. In fact, the concentration of aluminum in many landfills is higher than the concentration of aluminum in bauxite from which the metal is derived. Now, a multidisciplinary Michigan Tech research team will determine ways to select viable and sustainable landfill sites. Paul Sanders is the principal investigator (PI) on a…

LIFT, the Detroit-based manufacturing innovation institute sponsored by the U.S. Department of Defense, has partnered with Michigan Technological University on a number of recent projects. Last year, four teams of undergraduate students designed a powder metal atomization chamber to enable the creation of new alloy metal powders for use in additive manufacturing. While atomization is a standard t…

Bruce Lee (BioMed/IMP) is the principal investigator (PI) on a project that has received an $804,990 research and development grant from the U.S. Department of Defense. The project is titled “Environmental Scanning Electron Microscope for Research in Additive Manufacturing, Materials Development, and Plastic Waste Recycling.” Stephen Techtmann (BioSci/IMP), Paul Sanders (MSE/IMP) and Trisha Sain …

Yongmei Jin (MSE/IMP) is the principal investigator (PI) on a project that has received a $592,502 research and development grant from the National Science Foundation. The project is titled “NSF-BSF: Computation-Guided Advanced Fabrication of Silicide Nanostructures with Novel Magnetic Properties.” Ranjit Pati (Physics/IMP) is a co-PI on this potential three-year project. Extract Silicon technolo…

Parisa Pour Shahid Saeed Abadi (ME-EM/BioMed/MSE) and Masoud Kasraie ’22 (PhD, materials science and engineering) were quoted by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) in a story about the 3D nano-ink they developed in 2021 that could reduce the weight of many 3D-printed parts by 80%, keep cracks too tiny to see from growing in aeronautical equipment and medical devices, and double a…

Erik Herbert (MSE/IMP) is the principal investigator (PI) on a project that has received a $535,317 research and development grant from the National Science Foundation. The project is titled “GOALI: Engineering Mechanically Stable Interfaces Through Short-Range Molecular Rearrangement Driven by Inhomogeneous li Ion Transfer Kinetics.” Stephen Hackney (MSE/IMP) is a co-PI on this potential three-y…

The College of Engineering announces that Walter Milligan has accepted the position of Chair of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, beginning July 1, 2021. “I am very happy that Walt has agreed to be the Chair of Materials Science and Engineering,” stated Dean Janet Callahan. “His 31 years of experience at Michigan Tech, . . .

Oral Presentations Ninad Mohale from the Materials Science and Engineering department took second place for his presentation titled “Effects of Eta Phase on the High Temperature Creep Behavior of Nimonic 263.” The research is sponsored by the United States Department of Energy (DOE). Mohale is advised by Professor Walter Milligan. This year’s Graduate Research Colloquium . . .

MSE Professor Yun Hang Hu was honored with an impressive set of recognitions during the last year. Professor Hu was elected Fellow of both the American Chemical Society (ACS) and ASM International for his impactful contributions and developments in materials synthesis and catalyst science. In addition, Professor Hu received the Distinguished Service Award from the . . .

Prasad Soman will graduate soon with his PhD in Materials Science and Engineering. But instead of walking down the aisle and tossing his cap in Michigan Tech’s Dee Stadium, this year he’ll take part in Michigan Tech’s first-ever outdoor graduation walk. “My PhD research goal was to better understand how the addition of carbon affects . . .

A celebration of Michigan Tech MSE Professor Jiann-Yang (Jim) Hwang’s career of innovative contributions to the field of materials processing was the subject of an honorary symposium sponsored by the Extraction and Processing Division (EPD) at the 2021 TMS Annual Meeting. Prof. Hwang was honored for his pioneering research on microwave-assisted metallurgy; for engineering and . . .

The Department of Materials Science and Engineering congratulates Owen Mills on his upcoming retirement. We have enjoyed working with him during his years here at Michigan Tech and not only is he a valuable asset to MSE but we consider him part of the MSE family. Owen you will be missed by all of us . . .

Graduate student Chathura de Alwis (Chem), research assistant professor Timothy R. Leftwich (MSE), and assistant professor Kathryn A. Perrine (Chem) published their seminal paper on their new surface technique, “New Approach to Simultaneous In Situ Measurements of the Air/Liquid/Solid Interface Using PM-IRRAS” in Langmuir on March 16, 2020. Leftwich is an associate professor in the . . .

Joshua Pearce (MSE/ECE) and Michigan Tech alumnus Apoorv Kulkarni ’18, coauthored “Polymer-derived SiOC Replica of Material Extrusion-based 3D Printed Plastics“, which was published in Additive Manufacturing. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.addma.2019.100988 The results of this experimental study open up a completely new avenue in low-cost 3-D printing of ceramic structures with fused…

Interview with Professor (Hardware)X In this article, Christopher Tancock interviews Professor Joshua M. Pearce, Editor-in-Chief of HardwareX and finds out about why hardware articles are important, how they can help advance science and how they assist with reproducibility. Read more at Elsevier Connect, by Joshua M. Pearce and Christopher Tancock. In Print Graduate students Salil . . .

Jaroslaw Drelich (Mat Sci Engineering/IMP) is Principal Investigator on a project that has received a $369,747 research and development grant from the National Institutes of Health. Jeremy Goldman (Biomed Engineering) is Co-PI on this project titled, “Corrosion Fatigue Resistant and Intimal Hyperplasia Suppressive Biometal for Bioabsorbable Stents.” This is the first year of a potential . . .

DETROIT – LIFT—Lightweight Innovations For Tomorrow, a national manufacturing innovation institute operated by the American Lightweight Materials Innovation Institute (ALMMII), today announced it is loaning its tilt-pour casting machine to Michigan Technological University to enhance teaching and research at the school’s Department of Materials Science and Engineering (MSE) Foundry. The machine, …