2022 Awards Recipients
- Best Ph.D. Dissertation: Alexandra Easley, "Solution behavior and charge transfer kinetics of macromolecular radicals for energy storage."
- Best Paper, Graduate Student: Raiyan Seede, "Effect of composition and phase diagram features on printability and microstructure in laser powder bed fusion: development and comparison of processing maps across alloy systems."
- Best Paper, Postdoctoral Fellow: Lai Jiang, "Surface coverage-limited hydrogen uptake into nickel under cathodic charging."
- Excellence in Teaching: Ozge Kaynan, recognized for her excellent work as a teaching assistant for the class MSEN 360 during the spring 2022 semester.
- Excellence in Teaching: Ryan Brito, recognized for her excellent work as a teaching assistant for the class MSEN 360 during the spring 2022 semester.
- Excellence in Outreach: Ciera Cipriani, recognized for her outreach efforts within the materials science and engineering department and to external industry, government agencies, students and members of the public.
2021 Awards Recipients
- Best M.S. Thesis: Kailash Arole, “Water-Dispersible Ti3C2Tz MXene Nanosheets By Acid Free, Molten Salt Etching”.
- Best Ph.D. Thesis: Baiyu Zhang, “First-principles Electronic Structure and Defect Physics in Photovoltaic and Neuromorphic Materials”.
- Best Paper Graduate Student: Alexandra Easley, “Polypeptide organic radical batteries”.
- Best Paper by a Postdoc: Peiran Wei, “Thermal energy regulation with 3D printed polymer-phase change material composites”.
- Excellence in Teaching: Vrushali Kotasthane, has been recognized for her excellent work as a teaching assistant for the class MSEN 301 Lab C.
2020 Awards Recipients
- Best M.S. Thesis: Courtney Kunselman, "Semi-supervised learning approaches to class assignment in ambiguous microstructures".
- Best Ph.D. Thesis: Hua Wang, "First-principles theory, discovery, and design of nonlinear optical materials".
- Best Paper Graduate Student: Qing Zhou, "A Tailorable Family of Elastomeric-to-Rigid, 3D Printable, Interbonding Polymer Networks".
- Best Paper by a Postdoc: Manish Vasoya, "Energy dissipation rate and kinetic relations for Eshelby transformations"
- Excellence in Outreach: Yupeng Zhang was recognized for his service as an opinion columnist at the Battalion and as co-director of the Academy of Future Faculty (AFF).
- Excellence in Teaching: Zhen Sang was recognized for exemplary performance as a teaching assistant in polymer lab (Lab A) and Unified Materials Lab I (MSEN 301).
2019 Awards Recipients
- Best M.S. Thesis - This award was split between two students:
- Reece Goldsberry, "Electrochemical Evaluation of Self-Healing Epoxy Coated Rebar in Simulated Concrete Pore Solution".
- Joshua Hope, "Exfoliation and Morphological Evolution from Graphite to Graphene in Compacted Reactors".
- Best Ph.D. Thesis: Behrouz Haghgouyan, "Materials Design Under Bayesian Uncertainty Quantification".
- Best Paper Graduate Student - This award was split between two students:
- Entrepreneurship: Jaylen James was recognized for his participation in the Aggies Invent competition in 2017, his involvement in the Entrepreneurship in Chile study abroad trip and his team’s startup Xplosion Technology winning the speed pitch competition at South by Southwest in March, among other endeavors.
- Excellence in Outreach - This award was split between two students:
- Hanna Hlushko was recognized for her work with Women in Materials Science, leading a team of undergraduates under the Aggie Research Leadership Program to work with her in the lab, volunteering as a moderator to facilitate the discussion at a workshop for graduate students titled Mentoring Undergraduate Researchers and many other outreach activities.
- Arash Shadravan was recognized for serving as the president of NACE student chapter, initiating the NACE Industry Lecture Series, and executed the first Corrosion and Materials Reliability Symposium at Texas A&M-RELLIS.
- Excellence in Teaching- This award was split between several students:
- Adwait Gaikwad
- Wahaz Nasim
- Oscar Huang
- Jahanzaib Malik
- Evan Prehn
- Dimitrios Loufakis
2018 Awards Recipients
- Best M.S. Thesis: Tung Yan (Esther) Liu, Atomistic Simulations of the Viscoelastic Response of a Model Single-Crystal Equiatomic Solid Solution
- Best Ph.D. Thesis: Brandon Sweeney, Electromagnetic Energy Coupled to Nanomaterial Composites for Polymer Manufacturing
- Best Paper, Graduate Student: Tianyu (Kelvin) Yuan, Tunable Thermochromism of Multifunctional Charge-Transfer-Based Supramolecular Materials Assembled in Water
- Best Paper, Post-Doc: Ian McCue, Gaining New Insights into Nanoporous Gold by Mining and Analysis of Published Images
- Entrepreneurship: Mike Liu for opening his own online marketplace to help develop his entrepreneurial acumen as well as provide funding for future business endeavors specifically online business applications, real estate investing, and stock investing.
- Excellence in Outreach - This award was split between two students:
- Olga Eliseeva for her outstanding involvement in many outreach activities in the department, university, and in professional societies, enhancing the visibility of our department and Texas A&M including acting President of Materials Advantage and Student Board Member of ASM International.
- Timothy Brown for his involvement with mentoring and promoting education of UG materials engineers and commitment to broader impacts which has earned him an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship.
- Excellence in Teaching - This award was split between two students:
- Mengying Liu for her outstanding teaching in MSEN 620: Kinetic Processes in Materials. She organized a weekly review session where she would go over homework and test problems with students from the class and helped those struggling pull ahead, earning respect and gratitude from her peers.
- Jaskirat Batra for his outstanding teaching in MEEN/MSEN 222. Jaskirat actively worked to enhance student educational experience, and launched a Virtual-Reality based learning module for this purpose.
2017 Awards Recipients
- Best M.S. Thesis: Nayan Chaudhary for his M.S. thesis, "A Data-Driven Machine Learning Approach to Predicting Stacking Fault Energy in Austenitic Steels".
- Best Ph.D. Thesis: Sneha Chawla for her Ph.D. thesis, "Microstructure-mechanical Property Relationships in Carbon Nanofibers".
- Best Paper, Graduate Student: Hua Wang for his paper, "Two-dimensional multiferroics in monolayer group IV monochalcogenides" published in 2D Materials.
- Best Paper, Post-Doc: Dr. Fernando Soto for his paper, "Tuning the Solid Electrolyte Interphase for Selective Li- and Na-ion Storage in Hard Carbon," published in Advanced Materials.
- Excellence in Outreach: Victoria Albright for her outstanding work in materials science and engineering outreach in the College of Engineering and College of Science. She has served as president of Women in Materials Science, a student organization in the department, dedicated to encouraging women to pursue studies in materials science and careers in STEM fields while promoting a community atmosphere among students and faculty.
2016 Awards Recipients
- Best M.S. Thesis - This award was split between two students:
- Luke Johnson for his M.S. thesis, "A Computational Framework For The Prediction of Multistage Heat Treatments in Age Hardened Alloys".
- Yenny Gonzalez for her M.S. thesis, "Performance of Zinc-Rich Epoxy Primers Containing Carbon Nanotubes of the Corrosion Protection of Carbon Steel in Simulated Concrete Pore Environments".
- Best Ph.D. Thesis: Dr. Liangfa Hu for his Ph.D. thesis, "Fabrication and characterization of interpenetrating metal/ternary carbide composites".
- Best Paper, Graduate Student: Kevin Holder for his paper, "Carbon Nanotube Multilayer Nanocoatings Prevent Flame Spread on Flexible Polyurethane Foam," published in Macromolecular Materials and Engineering.
- Best Paper, Post-Doc: Dr. Fernando Soto for his paper, "Formation and Growth Mechanisms of Solid-Electrolyte Interphase Layers in Rechargeable Batteries," published in Chemistry of Materials.
- Entrepreneurship: TriFusion Devices (Blake Teipel, Brandon Sweeney and Britton Eastburn) has been a model of student entrepreneurship. TriFusion Devices produces medical devices through additive manufacturing (3D printing). This team won the 2016 Rice Business Plan Competition and 2016 Baylor New Ventures Competition.
- Excellence in Outreach: Amy Bolon for her outstanding work in materials science and engineering outreach in the College of Engineering and College of Science. Since 2014, she has been the president of Materials Advantage Student Chapter at Texas A&M and Women in Materials Science, a student organization in the department.
- Excellence in Teaching: Diyar Dhannoon for his outstanding teaching in MSEN 602. His commitment to one-on-one instruction earned him the appreciation and respect of his students.