2025
April
Dickey named a Fellow by the Materials Research Society
Department of Materials Science & Engineering
The Materials Research Society (MRS) has named MSE’s Elizabeth Dickey a 2025 Fellow for her research in understanding microstructure and properties of materials used in energy and electronic applications. She aims to identify new materials for these purposes that will be more efficient and sustainable than current options.
“I am honored to earn this recognition from MRS and to be included among colleagues who share a commitment to advancing materials discoveries and building a community of dedicated researchers,” Dickey said.
March
De Graef recognized as distinguished scientist
MSE’s Marc De Graef was selected by the Microscopy Society of America (MSA) as the 2025 recipient of the Society’s Distinguished Scientist Award in the physical sciences. “MSA is an organization that is integral to advancing innovation in microscopy,” said De Graef. “I am grateful to receive this honor and to join a group of esteemed colleagues who have previously been conferred with this award.”
February
CMU faculty to present at SXSW
MechE’s Jon Cagan and Chris McComb, BME’s Keith Cook and Rosalyn Abbott, and BME/MSE’s Adam Feinberg are leading sessions at SXSW 2025. Cagan and McComb’s sessopm, called “Empowering learners to collaborate with AI,” will prepare students to use forthcoming AI technology in the classroom. Cook, Abbott, and Feinberg’s session, called “Bioengineering Approaches to Solve the US Organ Shortage,” will highlight an ongoing partnership between CMU and Mayo Clinic that researches ways to repair dysfunctional organs or create new ones from scratch. The offerings are on March 6th and 7th.
January
Rollett quoted on 3D printing for heat exchangers
Additive Manufacturing Media
MSE’s Tony Rollett was featured on Additive Manufacturing Media, where he explained how 3D printing is being used to produce heat exchangers for solar energy. “The lifetimes expected of these kinds of units is at least 10,000 hours, preferably even longer than that if you can do it,” said Rollet. “For these conditions of service, there’s no other way to do it. As far as I know, 3D printing is the only way to make these kinds of heat exchangers that will function for long times.”
Whitacre quoted on Cybertruck explosion
Newsweek
MSE’s Jay Whitacre spoke to Newsweek about the mechanics of the Cybertruck explosion in Las Vegas. He noted, “My understanding of ‘containing the explosion’ is that the sides of the truck did not blow out, and so all the explosive force went vertically as opposed to in all directions, thus partially containing the blast.”
2024
December
Marom uses machine learning for semiconductor research
Mellon College of Science
MSE’s Noa Marom used machine learning to identify potential crystallizable organic semiconductor materials. Using machine learning allowed her to narrow the pool of candidates from several hundred thousand to 44.
October
Bockstaller quoted on flame retardants
Live Science
MSE’s Michael Bockstaller spoke with Live Science regarding a recent study that detected high levels of flame retardants in some toys, kitchen utensils, and other household items made from recycled black plastic. Bockstaller noted, “The impact of these materials depends on the type of chemical, concentration, type of exposure, and individual circumstance.”
Krause awarded Robert L. Coble Award
American Ceramics Society
MSE’s Amanda Krause was awarded the Robert L. Coble Award for Young Scholars by the American Ceramics Society. The award recognizes an outstanding scientist who is conducting research in academia, in industry or at a government-funded laboratory.
September
Congratulations to our Andy Award Nominees
Carnegie Mellon University
Congratulations to the following College of Engineering Andy Award Nominees. Cheer them on at the event on Tuesday, October 15 in McConomy Auditorium.
Commitment to Excellence: Rookie
- Amber Dworek (INI)
- Eric Mrock (MechE)
- Patricia Musiime (CMU-Africa)
- Geena Provenzano (CEE)
- Lauren Smith (College Offices)
Commitment to Excellent: Veteran
- Melissa Brown (MechE)
- Andrea Cohen (College Offices)
- Allison McLachlan (CEE)
- Kristyn Williams (MechE)
- Emma Zink (III)
Commitment to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
- Jessica Tomko (ECE)
Commitment to Students
- Jeannette Daly (ECE)
- Mika Inamahoro (CMU-Africa)
- Jennifer Spirer (College Offices)
- Ed Wojciechowski (MechE)
Innovative and Creative Contributions
- Brian Belowich (CEE)
- Monica Submit (CMU-Africa)
- Anthony Talotta (MSE)
Spirit
- Abraham Darriel (CMU-Africa)
- Christa Jones (INI)
- Melissa Ritchie (CEE)
Teamwork and Collaboration (Standing Teams)
- CMU-Africa Student Induction Program: Jacqueline Bangirana, Nancy Biwott, Gikundiro Buki, Nick Carney, Abraham Darriel, Reginald Donkor, Gisele Gihozo, Mika Inamahoro, Rosine Kamahoro, Lucy-Anna Kelly, Sandra Malaika, Ines Manzi, Mugire Flavia Mugwaneza, Irene Munene, Johnson Nziza, Marie-Ange Rukundo, and Monica Sumbi.
- Chemical Engineering Academic Team: Maria Barnes, Heather Costello, Chelsea Lee, Nora Sieworiek
July
Faculty award winners announced
Congratulations to the 2024 faculty award winners who represent six departments across the College of Engineering. The recipients were recognized for their achievements as researchers and educators. The winners include: Benjamin Richard Teare Teaching Award: Jon Peha (EPP); David P. Casasent Outstanding Research Award: Gregory Lowry (CEE); Distinguished Professor of Engineering: Lorenz Biegler (ChemE); George Tallman Ladd Research Award: Amanda Krause (MSE) and Akshitha Sriraman (ECE); Outstanding Mentoring Award: Alan McGaughey (MechE); Outstanding Service Award: Jonathan Malen (MechE); and Steven J. Fenves Award for Systems Research: Carl Laird (ChemE).
Seven Engineering faculty awarded grants from Scott Institute
Carnegie Mellon University
Seven faculty from the College of Engineering received funding from this year’s Scott Institute Seed Grants to pursue projects advancing dacarbonization research and energy equity. This year’s winners include: CEE’s Gerald Wang, researching plastics decarbonization; MSE’s Paul Salvador and Mohammad Islam, researching carbon dioxide air capture with aerogels; EPP’s Ramteen Sioshansi and Granger Morgan, researching mitigating electric supply disruptions; ChemE/EPP’s Neil Donahue, upgrading an equipment’s ability to detect particles at low temperatures; and MSE’s Mohadeseh Taheri-Mousavi, repairing an induction furnace melter to study the effects of hydrogen on metal alloys.
Taheri-Mousavi receives Scott Institute Seed Grant
Wilton E. Scott Institute for Energy Innovation
MSE’s Mohadeseh Taheri-Mousavi was featured by the Scott Institute for research that was awarded one of this year’s Scott Institute Seed Grants. She will study the interactions between hydrogen atoms with high-strength metallic alloys; these interactions are called hydrogen embrittlement and they reduce the service life of the alloys. “This research is important because the production of metals contributes a significant portion of CO₂ emissions, e.g., about 28% of industrial emissions just come from steels and aluminum productions,” said Taheri-Mousavi. “Even if we optimized everything in the production process, we still wouldn’t be able to hit the 2050 CO₂ goal. The only way to achieve this goal is by reducing metal production, and H embrittlement is a hurdle as it is the most critical life limiting factor of high-strength metals.”
Whitacre featured for entrepreneurial endeavors
NPR
MSE’s Jay Whitacre was featured on “Midwest Moxie” on NPR affiliate WUWM 89.7, as he spoke about his entrepreneurial endeavors, most recently with Stratus Materials.
Whitacre’s start-up reaches notable milestone
Green Car Congress
The company announced that its LXMO-containing pouch cells surpassed 1,000 full depth-of-discharge cycles while maintaining greater than 80% of their initial capacity, a common goal across the EV battery industry. “The Stratus team looks forward to building upon these strong technical results as we improve, commercialize, and scale production in the coming quarters,” said Whitacre.
June
Bockstaller speaks about developments in plastics recycling
American Recycler
MSE’s Michael Bockstaller spoke with American Recycler about his lab’s research into improving plastic recycling by addressing complications due to the pastics’ chemistry. “‘Recycling’ as sub-category to the broader theme of ‘sustainable polymer engineering’ has become the topic of national academic center-scale research efforts and focus of industrial efforts,” he said. “My group is pursuing yet another strategy: the development of polymers that can ‘heal’ themselves,” Bockstaller said. “The idea is to design materials that can recover their structure and properties after damage events—thus reducing the amount of material that is discarded due to malfunction.”
Pistorius weighs in on a new, green method of producing steel
Canary Media
MSE’s Chris Pistorius spoke with Canary Media about a new method of preparing iron using electricity rather than with fossil fuels. This method is being developed by Form Energy, which is also trying to develop batteries that store clean energy using similar technology. “[The method is] efficient both from the point of view of energy use and cost,” Pistorius said. But Form Energy may run into challenges when it comes to making their method cheap due to the cost of electricity. “The main electricity consumption is breaking the bonds between iron and oxygen. That’s a fixed baseline that you can’t get below.”
Three MSE faculty win Scott Institute grants
Wilton E. Scott Institute for Energy Innovation
MSE’s Mohammad Islam, Mohadeseh Taheri-Mousavi, and Paul Salvador have received seed grants from Carnegie Mellon’s Scott Institute for Energy Innovation. These grants support cutting-edge research in sustainable energy solutions, and these faculty members are three of seven university-wide awardees who are together being granted almost $400,000.
Kurchin discusses research retractions and blame
MIT Technology Review
MSE’s Rachel Kurchin spoke with the MIT Technology Review concerning a number of retractions made by physics journals. Kurchin commented on the question of who should be blamed for the problematic articles that are published.
May
Kurchin selected as MoISSI Faculty Fellow
MoISSI
MSE’s Rachel Kurchin has been selected to participate in the inaugural class of Molecular Sciences Software Institute (MolSSI) Faculty Fellows. MolSSI is a multi-university collaboration designed to serve and enhance the software-development efforts of the field of computational molecular science.
April
Dickey researches a new class of metal nanoparticles
Mellon College of Science
MSE Head Elizabeth Dickey is researching a new class of metal nanoparticles. She will obtain high-resolution images of metal nanoclusters and their assemblies, with the aim of developing nanoclusters that contain multiple elements and have a precise atomic count and composition. Dickey is collaborating with Chemistry’s Linda Peteanu and Rongchao Jin, who recently received a New Initiatives research grant from the Charles E. Kaufman Foundation.
Bockstaller quoted on safety of food storage containers
Buy Side from WSJ
MSE’s Michael Bockstaller was quoted in Buy Side on the safety of certain brands of food storage containers. Pyrex’s containers, originally made of borosilicate glass, are now made with cheaper but similarly durable soda-lime glass; Bockstaller explained that both types of glass are safe for food storage. Regarding plastic food containers like those produced by Rubbermaid, Bockstaller said that certified BPA-free polycarbonate (PC) plastics are the best bet since they’re more resistant to high temperatures than polyethylene (PE) or polyethylene terephthalate (PET).