MSE - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Assistant Professor and Croll Sesquicentennial Fellow
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- PARADIM Administrative Manager
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- Assistant Director of Graduate Programs
Chekesha Liddell received a Bachelor of Science in Chemistry with Highest Distinction from Spelman College (1999) and a Bachelor of Materials Engineering from Georgia Institute of Technology (1999), [Atlanta University Center, Dual Degree Engineering Program]. She was awarded the NASA Women in Science and Engineering Scholarship to support her undergraduate work including an honors thesis on the Synthesis and Characterization of m-Aminobenzenarsonic acid, an important standard for understanding the metabolysis of arsenic in poultry. Liddell also held three internship appointments at NASA, Kennedy Space Center in the Cryogenics and External Tank Branch and the Microchemical Analysis Laboratories. She joined the Cornell University faculty in November of 2003, after receiving a Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering with a minor in Science and Technology Policy from Georgia Tech. Liddell's awards for scholarly achievement include the National Science Foundation (NSF) Career Award [Nonspherical, Active, and "Inverted" Bases for Optimized Photonic Crystal Design] (2006); Facilitating Academic Careers in Engineering and Sciences Career Initiation Grant, (2003); Office of Naval Research Graduate Fellowship (1999-2003); Georgia Tech President's Fellowship, (1999-2003); Facilitating Academic Careers in Engineering and Sciences Fellowship (1999-2003); NSBE, National Society of Black Engineers Fellow, (2000); Hertz Foundation Fellowship Grant, (1999); TMS materials society, J. Keith Brimacombe Presidential Scholarship, (1999); ASM Foundation Scholarship, ASM International materials society, (1998); and the ASTM, American Society for Testing and Materials, Mary R. Norton Memorial Fellowship, (1999). Liddell is a member of Phi Beta Kappa, the American Chemical Society, the Materials Research Society, the Cornell Center for Materials Research (CCMR) and the Cornell Center for Nanoscale Systems (CNS).
Job Titles:
- Associate Professor
- Associate Professor / Materials Science and Engineering
Chekesha Liddell received a Bachelor of Science in Chemistry with Highest Distinction from Spelman College (1999) and a Bachelor of Materials Engineering from Georgia Institute of Technology (1999), [Atlanta University Center, Dual Degree Engineering Program]. She was awarded the NASA Women in Science and Engineering Scholarship to support her undergraduate work including an honors thesis on the Synthesis and Characterization of m-Aminobenzenarsonic acid, an important standard for understanding the metabolysis of arsenic in poultry. Liddell also held three internship appointments at NASA, Kennedy Space Center in the Cryogenics and External Tank Branch and the Microchemical Analysis Laboratories. She joined the Cornell University faculty in November of 2003, after receiving a Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering with a minor in Science and Technology Policy from Georgia Tech. Liddell's awards for scholarly achievement include the National Science Foundation (NSF) Career Award [Nonspherical, Active, and "Inverted" Bases for Optimized Photonic Crystal Design] (2006); Facilitating Academic Careers in Engineering and Sciences Career Initiation Grant, (2003); Office of Naval Research Graduate Fellowship (1999-2003); Georgia Tech President's Fellowship, (1999-2003); Facilitating Academic Careers in Engineering and Sciences Fellowship (1999-2003); NSBE, National Society of Black Engineers Fellow, (2000); Hertz Foundation Fellowship Grant, (1999); TMS materials society, J. Keith Brimacombe Presidential Scholarship, (1999); ASM Foundation Scholarship, ASM International materials society, (1998); and the ASTM, American Society for Testing and Materials, Mary R. Norton Memorial Fellowship, (1999). Liddell is a member of Phi Beta Kappa, the American Chemical Society, the Materials Research Society, the Cornell Center for Materials Research (CCMR) and the Cornell Center for Nanoscale Systems (CNS).
Job Titles:
- Francis Norwood Bard Professor of Metallurgical Engineering
- Gutenberg Research Prize ( U of Mainz )
- Humboldt Research Prize
- Professor
Christopher Kemper Ober is the Francis Bard Professor of Materials Engineering at Cornell University. After several years in industry at the Xerox Research Centre of Canada, Ober arrived at Cornell in 1986. His research is focused on lithography, patterning, the biology materials interface and control of surface structure in thin films. As a reflection of his contributions to lithography, Ober in 2015 was honored with the Photopolymer Science & Technology Outstanding Contribution Award. He is the 2006 winner of the American Chemical Society Award in Applied Polymer Science, and received a Humboldt Research Prize in 2007. In 2009, Ober was named a Fellow of the American Chemical Society and was awarded the Gutenberg Research Prize by the University of Mainz. Ober served as Interim Dean of Engineering 2009 - 2010. In 2014 he was a JSPS Fellow in Japan. More recently he was elected a fellow of APS (2014) and AAAS (2015) and made a SPIE Senior Member (2018). He is currently the Director of the Cornell Nanoscale Facility.
Christopher K. Ober, professor of materials science and engineering, has been elected to the National Academy of Engineering, among the highest professional distinctions for an engineer. Read more about Ober, materials scientists elected to National Academy of Engineering
Job Titles:
- Accounts Representative V
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- Sesquicentennial Faculty Fellow ( Cornell University ) 2012
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- Herbert Fisk Johnson Professor of Industrial Chemistry
- Materials Research Society ( MRS ) Fellows
Darrell Schlom is the Herbert Fisk Johnson Professor of Industrial Chemistry in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at Cornell University. After receiving a B.S. degree from Caltech, he did graduate work at Stanford University receiving an M.S. in Electrical Engineering and a Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering. He was then a post-doc at IBM's research lab in Zurich, Switzerland in the oxide superconductors and novel materials group managed by Nobel Prize winners J. Georg Bednorz and K. Alex Müller. In 1992 he joined the faculty at Penn State in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, where he spent 16 years before joining the faculty at Cornell in 2008. His research interests involve the heteroepitaxial growth and characterization of oxide thin films by reactive molecular-beam epitaxy (MBE), especially utilizing a 'materials-by-design' approach to the discovery of materials with properties superior to any known. His group synthesizes these oxide heterostructures using molecular-beam epitaxy (MBE). He has published over 600 papers and 8 patents resulting in an h-index of 87 and over 35,000 citations. He has received various awards including a Humboldt Research Award and the MRS Medal, is a Fellow of both the American Physical Society and the Materials Research Society, and is a member of the National Academy of Engineering.
Job Titles:
- Chairman Professor of Engineering ( 2020 )
- Professor of Engineering
Debdeep Jena is the David E. Burr Professor of Engineering at Cornell University. He is in the departments of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Materials Science and Engineering, and is a field member in the department of Applied and Engineering Physics. He joined Cornell in 2015 from the faculty at Notre Dame where he was since August 2003, shortly after earning the Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB).
His teaching and research are in the quantum physics of semiconductors and electronic and photonic devices based on quantized semiconductor structures (e.g. Nitrides, Oxides, 2D Materials), and their heterostructures with superconductors, ferroelectrics and magnets, with device applications in energy-efficient transistors, light-emitting diodes and RF and power electronics and quantum computation and communications. His research is driven by the goal to enable orders of magnitude increase in the energy efficiency and speed for computation, memory, communications, lighting, and electrical energy management ranging from the chip to the grid.
The research from his group has been published in more than 300 journal papers including in Science, Nature, Physical Review Letters, Applied Physics Letters and Electron Device Letters. Several patents have been granted for the group's research work. He is a fellow of the American Physical Society and is the winner of teaching awards and research awards such as the ISCS young scientist award in 2012, MBE young scientist award in 2014, and awards from the industry such as the IBM faculty award in 2012, and most recently the Intel Outstanding Research award in 2020.
Research Interests
The Jena group explores the fundamental limits of computation, memory, and communications with semiconductor devices by exploiting and understanding new physics. In recent years, they are immersed in research on the following topics:
the performance limits of ultrahigh speed GaN and AlN transistors for all-electronic THz sources,
ultra wide bandgap semiconductor transistors for power electronics (see Energy.gov presentation),
photonic devices in the IR & visible, and deep-UV LEDs and lasers approaching 200 nm using quantum dots,
ultra-low power electronics: logic and memory exploiting spintronics, topological insulators, and superconductors, and
novel materials and devices for quantum computation and communication that go far beyond classical device limits.
Job Titles:
- Horizontal Leader - Flexible Hybrid Electronics at G.E. Global Research
Dr. Nancy Stoffel is the Horizontal Leader for Flexible Hybrid electronics at G.E. Global Research. This division of G.E. Global Research works to marry printed electronics with conventional silica electronics, leading to more robust and cost-effective electronics solutions. Nancy Stoffel was recently named a NextFlex fellow, NextFlex is a consortium of leaders in the Flexible Hybrid electronics research and industry. She serves on the Industry Advisory Board for Cornell Center for Materials Research (CCMR) and the Materials Research Society (MRS) as well as being the 2019 Program Chair for the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Electronic Components and Technology Conference (IEEE ECTC).
Nancy received her Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering at Cornell University in 1995.
Job Titles:
- Member of the MSE Advisory Board
- Program Director at Corning Incorporated
Dr. Polly W. Chu is a Program Director at Corning Incorporated, with responsibility for leading commercial, technical and manufacturing groups to develop new glass products and processes.
She joined Corning in 1994 as a senior scientist within Corning's Research and Development organization, specializing in telecommunications. For 26 years, Polly has held a number of managerial and technical lead positions within the company's Optical Fiber and Specialty Materials businesses as well as its R&D and Emerging Innovations organizations. She has been granted fourteen patents.
Prior to joining Corning, Polly served as Product Development Engineer at Johnson and Johnson Incorporated.
She holds a doctorate in materials science and engineering from Cornell University and a Bachelor of Science in chemical engineering from The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art. Polly has also completed the Advanced Management Program at Harvard Business School.
She is currently on the Regional Board of Trustees for the SUNY Corning Community College. Polly has volunteered with the Aurene Neighborhood organization as a Resident Advisory Board member since 2016. In addition, she was Western and Central NY Regional Council member for the American Red Cross from 2016-2018, and a board member of the Finger Lakes Chapter of the American Red Cross from 2009 to 2018.
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- Senior Scientist for Emergent Materials Systems Division at the US Air Force Research Laboratory
Dr. Richard A. Vaia is the Senior Scientist for Emergent Materials Systems in the Air Force Research Laboratory and Lead for NanoMaterials for the Materials and Manufacturing Directorate. The 70 person government and contractor team focuses on accelerating the maturation of high-risk material-based solutions to non-conventional energy and sensor requirements for the Air Force. His research group focuses on polymer nanocomposites, complex nanoparticle architectures and their impact on developing adaptive soft matter. He received his BS, MS, and PhD degree in Materials Science and Engineering at Cornell University (1991, 1993, 1995) and was a distinguished graduate from Cornell's AFROTC. His honors and awards include Fellow of the Air Force Research Laboratory (2010), Doolittle Award, American Chemical Society (2009), MRL Visiting Professor at University of California Santa Barbara (2006), Air Force Outstanding Scientist (2002), and Air Force Office of Scientific Research Star Team (2001-2003; 2004-2006; 2007-2009, 2010-2012). Rich has served on editorial boards and external panels of numerous centers, as well as serving on the Board of Directors for the Material Research Society. He has authored over 200 peer-reviewed papers and 16 patents.
"Highly Cited--Physics". Ranked 29th in the world for the period 1981 - 1997. (Thomson ISI)
Job Titles:
- Assistant Professor
- Associate Professor
Dr. Donnelly received her BS and MS in Materials Science and Engineering at Stanford University. In 2007 she received her PhD in Mechanical Engineering at Cornell University, where she examined the role of mineral and collagen on the mechanical properties of bone tissue at multiple length scales. As a postdoctoral fellow she studied skeletal tissue biology and biophysical imaging in Biomedical Sciences at Cornell and material properties of osteoporotic bone in the Mineralized Tissues Laboratory at the Hospital for Special Surgery.
Dr. Donnelly received an NIH Ruth L Kirchstein National Research Service Award for her postdoctoral fellowship at HSS examining the effects of bone tissue mineral and collagen properties on fracture incidence. She received the American Society for Bone and Mineral Research's Young Investigator Award in 2010 and Junior Faculty Osteoporosis Research Award in 2012 for her work on the effects of bisphosphonates on bone tissue properties. She received the New Investigator Recognition Award from the Orthopedic Research Society in 2009 and the Alice L. Jee Memorial Young Investigator Award from the Sun Valley Workshop on Skeletal Tissue Biology in 2007 for her work on imaging primary cilia in skeletal tissues. In 2103 she received an NIH K01 award to study bone material properties and mechanical behavior in Type 2 diabetic patients and in 2015 received an NSF CAREER award, "CAREER: Role of Variations in Tissue Material Properties in Bone Fracture Behavior."
Fiona Li ‘78 & Donald Li ‘75 Excellence in Teaching Award, College of Engineering, Cornell University 2007
Job Titles:
- Francis Norwood Bard Professor of Metallurgical Engineering
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- Electrical and Electronics Engineers ( IEEE ) Senior Member
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- Assistant Research Professor
- Research Assistant Professor in the Department of Materials Science
Hari Nair is a Research Assistant Professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at Cornell University. Previously, he was a Research Associate with Prof. Darrell Schlom at Cornell University, where he worked on the growth of ruthenate Ruddlesden-Popper thin films using molecular beam epitaxy. This work has lead to the first demonstration of superconducting Sr2RuO4 thin films in the United States. Hari received his Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from The University of Texas at Austin in 2013. His Ph.D. work involved molecular beam epitaxy growth of GaSb-based semiconductor alloys to extend the emission wavelength of type-I diode lasers into the 3-5 μm range. This work resulted in the longest wavelength GaSb-based type-I diode laser with an aluminum free active region at room temperature. Hari received his B.Tech. in Engineering Physics from Indian Institute of Technology Madras in 2006.
Job Titles:
- Investigator Award, Sun Valley Workshop on Musculoskeletal Biology, 2013
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- Investigator Award, NYSTAR
James Hwang graduated from the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Cornell University with a PhD degree. After years of industrial experience at IBM, Bell Labs, GE, and GAIN, he spent most of his academic career at Lehigh University. He cofounded GAIN and QED; the latter became the public company IQE. He used to be a Program Officer at the U.S. Air Force Office of Scientific Research for GHz-THz Electronics. He had been a visiting professor at Cornell University in the US, Marche Polytechnic University in Italy, Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, National Chiao Tung University in Taiwan, and Shanghai Jiao Tong University in China. He is an IEEE Life Fellow and a Distinguished Microwave Lecturer. He is also a Track Editor for the IEEE Transactions on Microwave Theory and Techniques. He has published approximately 400 refereed technical papers and been granted eight U.S. patents. He has researched electronic, optical, and micro-electromechanical devices and circuits. His current research interest includes scanning microwave microscopy, two-dimensional atomic-layered materials and devices, and electromagnetic sensors for individual biological cells.
Job Titles:
- Investigator Award ( American Society for Bone and Mineral Research - Advances in Mineral Metabolism ) 2011
- Investigator Award ( ASBMR - Advances in Mineral Metabolism ) 2011
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- Chairman of Tera Metal Co., Ltd
Jung-Hyun Oh has found Tera Metal Co., Ltd. and serves as its Chairman of BOS since January 2016. Mr. Oh's expertise in nano-metallurgy and fluoro-polymer were technological bases for Tera Metal's R&D developing new materials for Photovoltaic Cell and module. Tera Metal Co., Ltd. has developed Ag nano-coating technology and now it is providing Ag coated metallization pastes for Solar Cell industry worldwide. In October 2013, Jung-Hyun found Luvantix ADM Co., Ltd. which is producing light management polymer coatings for special optical fiber, fibers for laser and display including LCD, OLED and flexible OLED utilizing Siloxane, Fluoro polymer and UV curable chemistry. Luvantix ADM became a global leader in low refractive index polymers industry. Jung-Hyun Oh was Chief Executive Officer of SSCP Co. Ltd., since October 2003 and served as its President. Under Mr. Oh's leadership, SSCP had expanded regional business to global operations, including: Shanghai, Tianjin, Huizhou, Thailand, USA, Japan, Germany and Spain. Mr. Oh joined the chemical paint production department of Controlling Shareholder, SSCP in 1996 and had approximately 13 years of experience in the industry. He was appointed as the head of the research and development division of SSCP in 1998. He served as the chairman of Supervisory Board at SCHRAMM Holding Gmbh and was its Member of Supervisory Board since August 27, 2008. Mr. Oh graduated from Cornell University with a bachelor degree and a master degree in material science in 1995 and 1996, respectively.
Job Titles:
- Member of the MSE Advisory Board
- Board Director for Public and Private Companies
Dr. Czanderna serves on the Board of Directors for BlueLinx Corporation (NYSE:BXC), a $3B publicly-traded building products distributor, Weber-Stephen Products (Weber grills), and Balcan Plastics (flexible packaging & films). During her executive career, she was the CEO and a board member of Flexsteel Industries, Inc., (NASDAQ:FLXS) a top-six U.S. furniture manufacturer for residential and commercial markets; President, Owens Corning Building Materials, where she led global businesses including $3.3B of pink insulation and asphalt shingles; Vice President of Whirlpool's $1.8B global KitchenAid and Jenn-Air appliance businesses; and Vice President and General Manager of Eastman Kodak (electronic materials, digital products, professional film & paper). Dr. Czanderna started her career as a research scientist at Kodak, while President and board member for the Materials Research Society-Western NY section. Karel thrives in industries being disrupted by digital technology transitions and global threats. Her natural curiosity and intellectual rigor unite with the voice of the customer to drive innovation and profitable growth.
Karel earned a BS Physics ‘77 from Clarkson University, and MS & PhD ‘84 in Materials Science and Engineering from Cornell University where she was honored with the MS&E Distinguished Alumni Award, and currently serves on Cornell University's MS&E Advisory Board. Earlier she was named to both the President's Council of Cornell Women and the Engineering Advisory Council. Karel received a Golden Knight Award from Clarkson University, and was on their Board of Trustees. She also attended the Harvard Business School Executive Management Program and has been profiled in Directors and Boards magazine "Directors to Watch".
Job Titles:
- Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at Northwest University
Dr. Shull's current research interests are in polymer surfaces and interfaces, in particular the adhesion of soft materials. Shull's research includes understanding the viscoelastic behavior of polymers using Quartz Crystal Microbalance. QCM is a robust technique that is not fully utilized by the polymer community, but Shull's research is advancing the understanding of QCM and Polymer behavior.
Dr. Shull is a Ph.D. alumnus of Cornell University Materials Science & Engineering (1990), also holding a BS in Materials Science and an MS in Electronic Materials from MIT. After receiving his Ph.D. he worked at the IBM Almaden Research Center, in 1993 he joined the faculty of Northwestern University in 1993. From 1994-1999 Schull was an NSF Young Investigator, he was also named a fellow of the American Physical Society in 2002. In 2009 he was named a Patrick Fellow of the Adhesion Society and served as the Adhesion Society President from 2011-2013.
Job Titles:
- Teaching Support Specialist II
Job Titles:
- Professor
- Professor / Materials Science and Engineering
Lara A. Estroff received her B.A. with honors from Swarthmore College (1997), with a major in Chemistry and a minor in Anthropology. Before beginning her graduate studies, she spent a year at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel as a visiting researcher in the labs of Profs Lia Addadi and Steve Weiner. During this time, she was introduced to the field of biomineralization and studied chemical approaches to archeological problems. In 2003, she received her Ph.D. in Chemistry from Yale University for work done in Prof. Andrew D. Hamilton's laboratory on the design and synthesis of bio-inspired organic superstructures to control the growth of inorganic crystals. After completing graduate school, she was an NIH-funded postdoctoral fellow in Prof. George M. Whiteside's laboratory at Harvard University (2003-2005). Since 2005, Dr. Estroff has been in Materials Science and Engineering department at Cornell University and in 2019 she was promoted to Full Professor. She served as the Director of Graduate Studies in the department from 2015-2019. As of August 2020, she is the current Chair of the Materials Science and Engineering department. Her group focuses on bio-inspired materials synthesis, crystal growth mechanisms, and the high-resolution characterization of pathological mineralization. She has received several awards, including an NSF Early Faculty Career Award in 2009 and a J.D. Watson Young Investigator's award from NYSTAR in 2006.
Research Interests
The diversity of biomineralized structures, ranging from magnetic nanoparticles in bacteria to large, single-crystalline sea urchin spines to the hierarchical composite structure of bone, has inspired the study of structure-function relationships within naturally occurring materials, and the development of synthetic routes to organic-inorganic composites with complex morphologies and desirable materials properties. Central to the study of biomineralization, and still poorly understood, are the multiple crystallization pathways by which the organisms control the structures and properties of the final products. Once these pathways are understood, they become synthetically powerful for designing new materials and developing low-cost, solution-based approaches to functional materials. In addition to normal, physiological biomineralization, a related field is the study of pathlogical mineralization, i.e., conditions in which the normal pathways have become disrupted. Here too, unraveling the crystallization pathways is essential to aid in the discovery of diagnostic and therapeutic approaches for treating diseases linked with pathological mineralization. Dr. Estroff has established a robust research program to tackle these open questions at both a fundamental and applied level.
Dr. Estroff's research is rooted in the fundamental study of solution crystal growth mechanisms, with applications in fields ranging from biomineralization and pathological mineralization to synthetic bio-inspired crystalline materials. Within these larger fields, Dr. Estroff has concentrated her research efforts in 4 general areas: 1) state-of-the-art materials characterization (e.g., chemical, structural, mechanical, etc.) of physiological and pathological biominerals; 2) in situ evaluation of crystal growth mechanisms in materials ranging from the biologically relevant calcite to the emerging photovoltaic material, hybrid organic-inorganic perovskites; 3) the development of bio-inspired synthetic strategies (e.g., confinement, patterned growth, organic templates) to create new crystalline materials with complex morphologies, compositions, and properties; and 4) the design of in vitro models of cell-mineral interactions and tissue engineered constructs that recapitulate key features of biomineralization.
Job Titles:
- Administrative Director
- Director of Administration
Liane joined MSE as the Administrative Director in December 2020. She previously served as the Administrative Manager for the Center for Regional Economic Advancement (CREA), responsible for Finances, Operations, HR, and Research Administration. Liane has 15+ years of experience at Cornell University in a number of financial and administrative roles, previously serving as the Administrative Manager for the KAUST-CU Research Center. She received her Master's Degree in Public Administration from American University in Washington, DC as well as her Bachelors degree in Government and Economics.
Job Titles:
- Dean of Engineering and Mathematical Science at the University of Vermont
Linda S. Schadler, ('85 Materials Science and Engineering, Ph.D. '90 U. Pennsylvania) is Dean of the College of Engineering and Mathematical Sciences at the University of Vermont. Prior to her current position, Linda was the Vice Provost and Dean of Undergraduate Education and the Russell Sage Professor in Materials Science and Engineering at Rensselaer Poly-technic Institute. As Vice Provost, she provided leadership, and strategic direction to the Advising Learning and Assistance Center, The Office of International Programs, and the Office of Undergraduate Education. Linda was also the Associate Dean of Academic Affairs in the School of Engi-neering at Rensselaer overseeing the Manufacturing Innovation Learning Laboratory and the Multidisciplinary Design Laboratory. Linda is a Fellow of the Materials Research Society and of ASM International. She is a current member of the Materials Research Society Board of Directors and a former member of ASM International's Board of Trustees and the National Materials Advisory Board.
Job Titles:
- Visiting Professor in Engineering ( 2018 - 2019 )
Job Titles:
- Undergraduate Student Services Coordinator
Dr. Benedek received her BS in Chemistry (with First Class Honors) and PhD in Chemistry and Applied Physics, both from RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia. Her doctoral work focused on fundamental theoretical studies of weak interactions in mixed organic-inorganic molecular crystals. As a postdoctoral fellow at Imperial College London, she studied the structures of grain boundaries in complex oxide ferroelectrics, with the goal of linking microstructure to electrical properties. As part of this work, she co-developed a computational technique for predicting the atomic-scale structures of interfaces in complex materials. Dr. Benedek continued her work on complex oxides as a postdoctoral fellow in Applied Physics at Cornell, where she discovered a new route to achieve electric field-control of the magnetization in a family of multiferroic perovskites, a class of materials that could enable the development of low-power electronic devices.
Research Interests
The Benedek group uses theory and first-principles calculations to advance fundamental understanding and create design rules for new classes of materials that may host new phenomena and properties. We are particularly interested in understanding and controlling the structures and properties of materials out of equilibrium. Recent work includes understanding how to induce extreme changes in material properties through ultrafast optical control of the crystal lattice (nonlinear phononics). Another major focus is on exploring the mechanisms of thermal transport in materials, with a view towards formulating design principles for dynamically controllable transport properties. Dr. Benedek's research is supported by a CAREER award from the National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy, and the Cornell Center for Materials Research (an NSF MRSEC).
Job Titles:
- Member of the MSE Advisory Board
- Deputy Lab Director at NREL
- Deputy Laboratory Director for Science and Technology
In 2016, Peter F. Green became the deputy laboratory director for Science and Technology and the chief research officer for NREL. In this role, Green is responsible for NREL's science and technology strategy and goals, strengthening the laboratory's core capabilities, and enhancing NREL's research portfolio. In addition, he oversees the Laboratory Directed Research and Development Program, NREL-university interactions, and the postdoctoral fellows program.
Prior to his appointment at NREL in 2016, Green spent 20 years on the faculties of the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor and The University of Texas-Austin, and 11 years at Sandia National Laboratories, where his professional career began in 1985, as a postdoctoral researcher. He subsequently became a senior member of the research staff and department manager (1991-1996) in the center for Materials and Process Sciences.
In 1996 he moved to The University of Texas-Austin, where he became the B.F. Goodrich Endowed Professor of Materials Engineering and a professor of chemical engineering. In 2005, he was recruited to the University of Michigan to become chair of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, where he was the Vincent T. and Gloria M. Gorguze Endowed Professor of Engineering as well as professor of chemical engineering, applied physics, and macromolecular science and technology. He served as director of a DOE Energy Frontiers Research Center: Center for Solar and Thermal Energy Conversion.
Green's prior leadership experience includes serving as president of the Materials Research Society (MRS). He has been a member of advisory boards for the national academies, including formerly a member of the Board on Physics and Astronomy, and a member of the Board on Army Science and Technology. He is formally a member of the visiting committee for advanced technologies for NIST, and member of the advisory committee for the Petroleum Research Fund. He serves on various advisory committees for different universities.
His awards include election to the position of fellow of a number of societies: MRS, American Physical Society, American Ceramics Society, Royal Society of Chemistry, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He is a recipient of a DOE award of excellence, and he was named to the Hunter College "Hall of fame." Other recognitions include inaugural editor in chief, MRS Communications; National Science Foundation Creativity Extension Award; divisional associate editor for Physical Review Letters; and "Outstanding Referee" for the Journals of the American Physical Society.
Green earned B.A. and M.A, degrees in Physics from Hunter college in 1981, and his master's (1983) and doctorate (1985) in materials science and engineering from Cornell University.
Prof. Michael Thompson received his B.S. in Applied Physics from CalTech in 1979 and M.S./Ph.D degrees in Applied and Engineering Physics from Cornell. For the past 28 years, his group's research has focused on the behavior of semiconductor materials under pulsed and CW laser exposure. He is coauthor on more than 120 papers and over 20 patents.
Research Interests
Prof. Thompson's group is focused on the use of transient thermal processing on time frames from nanosecond to sub-seconds as a method for characterization and modification of material properties, focusing particularly on semiconductor materials and applications. These timeframes are achieved primarily through the use of pulsed and CW laser sources to heat materials to temperatures far beyond conventional limits, and cool within comparable timeframes by thermal quench to substrates. His group uses these methods to study fundamental material properties such as (i) the limits to liquid-phase epitaxial crystal growth through topologically complex nanopores, (ii) metastable activation and deactivation of dopant impurities in semiconductors, (iii) reaction and diffusion mechanisms in chemically amplified photoresist systems, and (iv) limits to stability of materials (organic) at high temperatures. These studies are tightly coupled with the corresponding industrial challenges including (i) front end junction formation for VLSI, (ii) EUV lithography, (iii) flexible electronics and (iv) novel photonic and solar cell materials. http://www.mse.cornell.edu/mse/research/resgroups/thompson/index.html
Ten faculty members have been selected to receive Stephen H. Weiss Awards honoring excellence in undergraduate teaching and mentoring, President Martha E. Pollack announced Oct. 18. "The Weiss Awards... Read more about Prof. Michael Thompson recognized with highest teaching award at Cornell University
Job Titles:
- Human Resources Representative
Job Titles:
- Associate Professor
- Professor
Professor Robinson's research focuses on nanostructured materials for alternative energy applications. Our goal is to utilize the advanced properties of nanomaterials to build efficient thermoelectrics and fuel cells. By altering the size, shape, and composition of our particles we are able to tune properties important to these applications such as their band gap and thermal conductivity. Additionally our conducting metal oxide nanomaterials can be used in a variety of other energy applications where charge transport is important.
Job Titles:
- Sesquicentennial Faculty Fellow ( Cornell University ) 2015
Shefford P. Baker received his PhD in Materials Science and Engineering at Stanford University, in 1993, was a staff scientist at the Max-Planck-Institut für Metallforschung in Stuttgart from 1993 to 1997 and joined the Cornell faculty in 1998. He was Visiting Professor at the Faculté des Sciences et Techniques de Saint Jérome, Université Paul Cézanne, Marseille, in summer 2006. Baker has received several teaching awards at Cornell, is on the faculty in Materials Science and Engineering at Cornell University. His research focuses on the mechanical properties of materials, particularly those having critical length scales in the nanometer regime. His interests include relating processing to structure, defects, and stresses in thin films, including texture and phase transformations; nanocontact mechanics; nanomechanical behavior of mineralized tissues, plastic deformation and hardness of silicate and metallic glasses. In addition to his current role as director of the MSE MEng program, Baker has served as the Director of Undergraduate Studies and as co-Director of the Biomaterials Program at Cornell and as President of the Materials Research Society.
Job Titles:
- Assistant to the Directors
Ulrich (Uli) Wiesner studied Chemistry at the University of Mainz, Germany, and UC Irvine, CA, US. He gained his Ph.D. in 1991 in Physical Chemistry with work at the Max-Planck-Institute for Polymer Research (MPI-P), Mainz, Germany, on holographic information storage in polymer liquid crystals. After a two-year postdoc at E.S.P.C.I. in Paris, France, on local dynamics-mechanical property correlations in polyesters, he returned to the MPI-P in 1993 were he finished his Habilitation and received tenure in 1998 with work on block copolymers under oscillatory shear and block copolymer ionomers.
He joined the Cornell University, NY, MS&E faculty in 1999 as a tenured Associate Professor, became a Full Professor in 2005, and since 2008 is the Spencer T. Olin Professor of Engineering. Since his arrival at Cornell he has worked at the interface between polymer science and inorganic/solid-state chemistry with the goal to generate multifunctional nanomaterials for applications including energy conversion and storage, clean water, and nanomedicine. Since 2015 he is the co-director of the MSKCC-Cornell Center for Translation of Cancer Nanomedicine (MC 2 TCN), one of six Centers for Cancer Nanotechnology Excellence (CCNE) funded by the NCI (https://www.cancer.gov/nano/research/alliance/ccne)
Research Interests
The goal of current research in the Wiesner group is to combine knowledge about the self-assembly of soft polymeric materials with the functionality of solid-state materials to generate novel hierarchical and multifunctional hybrid materials. Research results of the group on the use of blocked copolymers as structure directing agents for inorganic materials suggest that in analogy to biology, the sequence information of higher order blocked synthetic macromolecular architectures may be used to encode information about hierarchical structure of co-assemblies with ceramic or other materials. These principles may permit the design of entirely new classes of functional materials that have no analogue in the natural world with potential applications ranging from power generation and energy conversion all the way to the life sciences.
Job Titles:
- Communications Specialist
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- Materials Science Professor
Job Titles:
- Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Job Titles:
- General Manager
- Member of the MSE Advisory Board
- General Manager, Intellectual Property at IBM Corporation
Dr. LaFontaine is General Manager, Intellectual Property and VP, Research Business Development. He is responsible for IBM's IP business including technology licensing, patent licensing and sales, joint development and research collaborations globally.
In Bill's previous position as Vice President, Patent Software & Services, IP Licensing, he was responsible for managing and commercially leveraging IBM's patent portfolio, as well as building IBM's revenue and profit opportunities through commercialization of our software and services Intellectual Property assets.
Prior he was Vice President, High Performance Computing, Analytics, and Cognitive Markets. Bill served as the Business Line Executive responsible for the growth strategy, portfolio management, and execution of all aspects of the Power High End business. He also drove the creation and growth of the Cognitive marketplace, securing Power's role as the premier platform in this marketplace working with Research, Services and Software lines.