Our Research

Making possibilities realities

Our research portfolio is highly interdisciplinary and pushes the boundaries of traditional classifications in materials science research to establish a new paradigm for materials design and innovation. The department is organized into two broad overlapping research themes: Methodology Science and Discovery Science.

Methodology Science

The Methodology Science research cluster focuses on advancing and/or developing new techniques in experimental and computational materials science.

Discovery Science

The Discovery Science research cluster emphasizes innovations in the development of new materials, processes and expanding the design envelope for building devices and systems for a broad range of technological applications.

Research Areas

close up of materials under microscope.

Energy and the Environment

Advancing accelerated discovery, modeling, characterization and nanofabrication of materials for energy storage and conversion for renewable energy and carbon neutral technologies.

close up of materials under microscope.

Health and Medicine

Specialized research in high resolution imaging, time-resolved spectroscopy and property measurements  for molecular scale materials characterization, and research directed towards instrumentation development and sensor design.

Os and 1s.

Materials Informatics

Advancing the tools of applied mathematics, statistics, machine learning, machine vision and information science, into experimental and computational materials science.

researcher UB's CCR.

Microelectronics and Manufacturing

Research in the field of computing, multiscale modeling, and simulation of structure-property relationships in hard and soft materials.

Research Collaborations

Biology with X-ray Free Electron Lasers (BioXFEL) is a Science and Technology Center established by the National Science Foundation. BioXFEL represents a new paradigm for materials science research. For the first time, data sciences, physics, materials and chemistry of soft matter are converging to enable scientists to view the shape of a molecule as well as how it changes in real-time. The research can potentially transform a broad range of scientific fields focused on structural biology and drug development, and extend it to potential innovations in environmental technologies and development of new materials.

The Collaboratory for a Regenerative Economy (CoRE) is an integrated research, education and civic entrepreneurship initiative that links materials design with manufacturing technologies in coordination with the needs of industry and front-line communities. Our aim is to advance, in an accelerated manner, science-based solutions that enhance human and social capital.

Labs and Facilities

Our department provides a comprehensive set of computational and laboratory facilities for faculty, students and researchers. These unique labs serve as focal points for creating a shared and cooperative research environment for promoting interdisciplinary research among diverse research groups. 

group of researchers in lab.