The University of Notre Dame’s Materials Science and Engineering (MSE) program has awarded fellowships to five graduate students for the 2024–2025 academic year. These students, drawn from the Colleges of Engineering and Science, are pursuing a doctorate in the interdisciplinary Materials Science and Engineering program. Fellowship proposals are reviewed by the MSE program’s Executive Committee, which evaluates submissions from each student's research adviser. The chosen projects are expected to launch interdisciplinary materials research, with the potential to generate grant proposals for significant external funding.

This year’s fellowship projects cover diverse areas including quantum materials, topological crystalline superconductors, biomaterial scaffolds, Kagome metals, and organic semiconductor materials. Each Ph.D. fellow will benefit from guidance provided by an interdisciplinary mentor in addition to their primary adviser. This mentorship is designed to support and enhance the interdisciplinary focus of the MSE research. The list of fellows, their projects, advisers, and interdisciplinary mentors is provided below.

2024–2025 MSE Fellowship Projects

Project: Harnessing strong light-matter interactions in organic semiconductor materials

• Student: Wei-Kuo Li, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry
• Adviser: Hsing-Ta Chen, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry
• Interdisciplinary Mentor: Yi-Ting Hsu, Department of Physics and Astronomy

Project: Machine-learning assisted material search and design of topological crystalline superconductors

• Student: Shih-Chuan Lien, Department of Physics and Astronomy
• Adviser: Yi-Ting Hsu, Department of Physics and Astronomy
• Interdisciplinary Mentor: Meng Jiang, Department of Computer Science and Engineering

Project: Engineering biomaterial-based scaffolds for high-content high-throughput 3D bone metastasis prostate cancer model

• Student: Tiago Migliati Zanon, Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering
• Adviser: Yichun Wang, Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering
• Interdisciplinary Mentor: Xin Lu, Department of Biological Sciences

Project: Tuning charge orders in Kagome metals Cs1-xKxV3Sb5 via alkali substitution

• Student: Nileema Sharma, Department of Physics and Astronomy
• Adviser: Xiaolong Liu, Department of Physics and Astronomy
• Interdisciplinary Mentor: Stephen Wilson, University of California Santa Barbara

Project: Machine-learning-enhanced quantum materials visualization and discovery

• Student: Matt Toole, Department of Physics and Astronomy
• Adviser: Xiaolong Liu, Department of Physics and Astronomy
• Interdisciplinary Mentor: Xiangliang Zhang, Department of Computer Science and Engineering

To date, MSE fellowships have supported 19 materials-focused Ph.D. student projects.

Notre Dame’s MSE doctoral program is a distinctive, interdisciplinary program representing seven departments and programs in the Colleges of Engineering and Science. Established in 2020, the program now includes 49 students and has 11 graduates. To learn more about materials science and engineering at Notre Dame, or the interdisciplinary doctoral program, please visit mse.nd.edu.

Originally published by MSE Staff at mse.nd.edu on September 26, 2024.