A UO research team, led by Prof. Raghuveer Parthasarathy is the recipient of a Kavli Challenge award to support high-risk, interdisciplinary research. The team, which includes Parthasarathy (UO MSI), Prof. Brendan Bohannan (UO IEE) and Karen Guillemin (UO IMB), will create tools that will enable new experimental approaches for studying animal-associated microbial communities as ecosystems of interacting colonized hosts and colonizing microbes. Read More
News
Computational chemist to join energy and materials cluster
Christopher Hendon, a computational chemist, will bring his broad experience to bear on the ongoing challenge of developing more efficient energy sources. He’s the first hire in the UO’s Energy and Sustainable Materials Initiative, a Cluster of Excellence that builds on UO’s existing strengths in green chemistry, sustainable materials and renewable energy. Read More
A designer molecule offers new hope for damaged cells
Researchers in the UO lab of chemist Michael Pluth are part of a global battle against oxidative stress in the human body. It happens as we age and when we eat too much, smoke and drink alcohol. Read More
PNNL to partner with University of Oregon on materials science
RICHLAND, Wash. – A new agreement between the Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and the University of Oregon will allow scientists to obtain joint appointments that bridge the two research institutions. Link to article.
2016 Energy & Sustainable Materials Symposium
September 30 – October 1, Crater Lake Rooms, EMU
Registration at:
http://materialscience.uoregon.edu/2016-energy-sustainable-materials-symposium/
Simon’s Foundation funds Corwin’s research on “Cracking the Glass Problem”
MSI researcher Eric Corwin is part of a 13 member international team working on a new initiative seeking to understand the “glassy state of matter”. Corwin was recently awarded a $745k, 4-year award for his research into the study of jammed systems as it relates to glass.
“The endeavor to understand the glassy state of matter forces us to consider deeply the seemingly simple question: what is a solid. Glass – the prototypic and ubiquitous amorphous solid – inhabits an incredibly ramified and complex energy landscape in which systems are often stranded far from equilibrium. Dealing with so many relevant energy minima has emerged as one of the central problems of statistical physics and requires the invention of a new set of tools and concepts. This collaboration, addressing such fundamental issues of disorder, non-linear response and far-from-equilibrium behavior, builds upon three powerful approaches: studies of jamming at zero temperature, the mean-field theory of glasses in infinite dimension, and the dynamics in a marginally stable landscape. The convergence of recent breakthroughs in these areas generates a unique opportunity to tackle two outstanding and intimately related challenges:
• Developing a unified theory of structure and excitations in glassy matter
• Developing a theory for the relaxation dynamics upon approaching the glass transition.”
More Info:
https://around.uoregon.edu/content/uo-scientist-team-hoping-crack-glass-mysteries
MSI Researchers win award for Materials Prototyping Facility
Congratulations to MSI researchers for their successful award from the M. J. Murdock Charitable Trust. The award for $476,000 will support the “Oregon Rapid Materials Prototyping (RaMP) Facility”. RaMP will house flexible state-of-the-art tools for depositing inorganic films and nanostructures via atomic layer deposition and sputtering as well as micro-patterning those films into devices and test architectures. The facility will allow researchers to quickly deposit, characterize, and pattern thin-film inorganic materials to fabricate prototypes and test devices with applications in energy, optical communications/computation, and human health.
The ability to deposit function inorganic thin films and process them into (three-dimensional) functional device architectures will further high-impact basic science in nanophotonic and quantum opto-mechanical
devices, solar photovoltaic and photoelectro-chemical devices, electron optics, and sensing.
RaMP will also be used by industry and local start-ups, outside academic users, and for education,
accelerating a master’s internship track in semiconductors devices and thin film materials that connects to the Northwest’s electronics industry. MSI principal investigators on this proposal include professors Shannon Boettcher, Miriam Deutch, Mark Lonergan, Hailin Wang, and Benjamín Alemán, and Institute of Neuroscience professor Shawn Lockery.
SupraSensor “Science Nation” video released
Fundamental chemistry research from the Haley/Johnson labs leads to a new sensor that gives farmers a more accurate read on fertilizer needs. New video provided by the National Science Foundation released March 14, 2016 as “Science Nation” Video of the Day. See video
Richmond awarded National Medal of Science
The Obama administration has chosen Prof. Geri Richmond to receive the nation’s highest scientific honor. The National Medal of Science is the highest honor given by the U.S. government to scientists, engineers and inventors. Full Story
Taylor et al win Keck award to study neural implants
MSI Director Richard Taylor and collaborators in January were awarded a $900,000 grant to design bio-inspired implants , a common eye condition and a leading cause of vision loss among people age 50 and older. Full Story