Meeting chairs for the 2017 Materials Research Society (MRS) Fall Meeting are Ilke Arslan (Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, USA), Jason A. Burdick (University of Pennsylvania, USA), Tao Deng (Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China), James Hannon (IBM T.J. Watson Research Center, USA), and Sanjay Mathur (University of Cologne, Germany). The Meeting will be held November 26–December 1, 2017, in Boston, Mass.
The cross-disciplinary worldwide activity in materials research manifests itself every year in the MRS Fall Meetings. Featuring over 50 symposia and attended by as many as 6000 researchers from every corner of the globe, the meeting in Boston’s Hynes Convention Center and Sheraton Boston Hotel is the preeminent annual event for those in the field of materials research.
Ilke Arslan is a senior scientist at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and an adjunct professor in the Materials Science Department at the University of California, Davis. After receiving her PhD degree in physics from the University of California, Davis, she received the National Science Foundation International Research Fellowship and The Royal Society USA Research Fellowship to perform postdoctoral research at the University of Cambridge, UK. She then moved to Sandia National Laboratories as a Truman Fellow.
Her interests include understanding the structure–property relationships of a range of nanomaterials for energy, technique development in electron and atom probe tomography, and imaging under liquid and gas environments in the scanning transmission electron microscope. She has been honored by President Obama with the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, and as a Kavli Fellow by the National Academy of Sciences. She is a 2016 volume organizer for MRS Bulletin and serves on the editorial board of Microscopy and Microanalysis. She has been a Local Affiliated Societies Tour Speaker for the Microscopy Society of America for eight years, bringing her expertise in 3D and in situ imaging to local microscopy societies. She is active in the MRS Women in Materials Science and Engineering Subcommittee and the MRS Government Affairs Committee, and speaks at various venues to promote and encourage women in science, math, and engineering.
Jason A. Burdick is a professor in the Department of Bioengineering at the University of Pennsylvania. After receiving his PhD degree in chemical engineering from the University of Colorado in 2002, he moved to a postdoctoral fellow position at the Massa-chusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) from 2003 to 2005. He has also spent a semester as a visiting scholar at the University of Cambridge in 2011.
His research involves the development of hydrogels for various biological applications, and his laboratory is specifically interested in understanding and controlling polymers on a molecular level to control overall macroscopic properties. The applications of his research range from controlling stem cell differentiation through material cues to fabricating scaffolding for regenerative medicine and tissue repair. He currently has over 170 peer-reviewed publications. He has been awarded a K22 Scholar Development and Career Transition Award through the National Institutes of Health, an Early Career Award through the Coulter Foundation, a National Science Foundation CAREER Award, a Packard Fellowship in Science and Engineering, and an American Heart Association Established Investigator Award. He is on the editorial boards of the journals Tissue Engineering, Biomacromolecules, and Journal of Biomedical Materials Research A, and was recently appointed associate editor for ACS Biomaterials Science & Engineering.
Tao Deng is the “Zhi Yuan” Chair Professor at Shanghai Jiao Tong University (SJTU). He obtained his BS degree in 1996 from the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) and his PhD degree in 2001 from Harvard University, both in materials chemistry. After postdoctoral research at MIT, he was a senior scientist at the General Electric (GE) Global Research Center in Niskayuna, N.Y., from 2003 until he moved to SJTU in 2012.
His research focuses on the study of materials inspired by biological systems and the use of such materials for energy and optical applications. He is the recipient of USTC’s Guo Moruo President Award and numerous GE technical and patent awards. He also received best paper awards at the International Mechanical Engineering Congress Conference in 2008 and IEEE-ASME International Thermal Conference in 2010. He was selected as one of the top 100 young engineers to participate in the US National Academy of Engineering Frontiers of Engineering Symposium in 2011, and was selected for the Thousand Talents Program of the Chinese government in 2012.
Deng serves on the editorial boards of the journals Scientific Reports and Progress in Natural Science. He is a board member of the Chinese Materials Research Society. He served as the conference co-chair for the 2014 International Conference of Young Researchers on Advanced Materials, International Union of Materials Research Societies.
James Hannon joined IBM’s T.J. Watson Research Center in 2000 and manages a research group focused on the purification and integration of carbon nanotubes for applications in high-performance logic. He also manages the materials effort in earth-abundant photovoltaics.
He received a PhD degree in physics from the University of Pennsylvania in 1994 under the supervision of Ward Plummer. His thesis work focused on the atomic structure and lattice dynamics of beryllium surfaces. He then spent two years as a Humboldt Fellow with Harald Ibach at the Forschungszentrum Jülich, Germany, where he studied alloying mechanisms using electron energy-loss spectroscopy and scanning tunneling microscopy. In 1996, he moved to Sandia National Laboratories working as a postdoctoral researcher with Gary Kellogg on low-energy electron microscopy (LEEM). He performed real-time in situ measurements on silicon surfaces, investigating key processes such as boron segregation and oxygen etching. In 1998, he joined the Physics Department at Carnegie Mellon University prior to his present position.
Hannon continues his research on surfaces using LEEM, centering on surface phenomena, including strain-driven self-assembly, novel growth mechanisms, nanowire growth, and graphene synthesis. He has authored more than 50 refereed publications. He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society.
Sanjay Mathur is the director of the Institute of Inorganic Chemistry at the University of Cologne, Germany. He is the co-director of the Institute of Renewable Energy Sources at Xian Jiao Tong University, China, and a World Class University Professor at Chonbuk National University, South Korea. He also holds visiting professorships at Central South University, China; Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology, Japan; and the National Institute of Science Education and Research, India.
His research interests focus on the application of nanomaterials and advanced ceramics for energy technologies. He has authored/co-authored more than 350 research publications, holds several patents, and has edited 13 books. He is an Academician of the World Academy of Ceramics, a Fellow of The American Ceramic Society, and also acts as the International Ambassador of the University of Cologne. He received the Global Star Award in 2010 and the Bridge-Building Award in 2014, both from The American Ceramic Society. He was awarded the Lee Hsun Award of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Institute of Metal Research, China, in 2014. He is also the recipient of the 2015 Surface Innovator Award given by AkzoNobel and the Society of Surface Protection and Paints.
Mathur serves as editor for the Journal of Electroceramics, principal editor for the Journal of Materials Research, and an associate editor for the International Journal of Applied Ceramics Technology and the International Journal of Nanoscience and Nanomaterials. He is also on the editorial boards of the journals International Journal of Nanotechnology; Materials; Journal of Ceramic Science and Technology; and Nano Energy. He serves on the advisory committees of a number of international academies and research institutions and the Kavli Awards Committee of MRS.
