CoE Participates in Collaborative Symposium on Advanced and Living Materials
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In December, several faculty members from the College of Engineering (CoE) participated in a Collaborative Symposium and Workshop on Advanced and Living Materials, at which CoE Dean Sanjay Raman presented the introductory remarks. Maria Santore, a professor of polymer science and engineering at UMass Amherst, and Markus Retsch from the University of Bayreuth in Germany collaborated to convene the symposium on the UMass Amherst campus. See flyer: https://www.umass.edu/cumirp/events.
More than 100 participants attended the symposium, including those from six departments across the CoE and College of Natural Sciences, and they showcased the cutting-edge, soft-materials research being conducted at UMass Amherst and the University of Bayreuth. Discussions amplified common interests and complimentary approaches, capabilities, and instrumentation. The CoE participants included Jae-Hwang Lee of the Mechanical and Industrial Engineering (MIE) Department, Jessica Schiffman from the Chemical Engineering (ChE) Department, and Ashwin Ramasubramaniam from the MIE department.
In his opening remarks, Dean Raman said that the CoE was thrilled to be participating in the symposium, especially because “we pride ourselves on taking a highly collaborative and interdisciplinary approach to our materials research, which encompasses a broad range of foci.”
Dean Raman said that these collaborative specialties in the CoE include biomaterials, polymeric materials, advanced manufacturing, AI and machine learning for materials design, multiscale modeling and simulation, energy conversion and storage, nanoelectronics, photonics, quantum devices, information systems, and soft robotics.
As specific examples of such interdisciplinary specialties, Dean Raman highlighted one from each CoE department. Dmitry Kireev of the Biomedical Engineering Department has been developing graphene “tattoos” that can be applied to the skin to uncover early indications of diseases. ChE’s Schiffman is studying new antibacterial polymers that can kill antibiotic-resistant “superbugs.” Simos Gerasimidis of the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department is researching a new class of reinforced-concrete structures that exploit the unique mechanical properties of architected metamaterials. Jun Yao of the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department has invented a protein-nanowire-based device that harnesses the moisture in the air to generate electricity. And MIE’s Lee is working on new methods for understanding the response of additive-manufactured, compositionally-complex systems under extreme environments such as high pressure, high temperature, and high strain rates.
Dean Raman also said he was delighted that the CoE has partnered with the College of Natural Sciences to offer an interdisciplinary M.S./Ph.D. Program in Materials Science & Engineering, launched just a few years ago.
As Dean Raman concluded, “The most pressing problems we face as a global society – such as climate change, clean energy and water, affordable healthcare, sustainable built environments, and security – tend to span across multiple disciplines, and solving them will require a multitude of approaches working in unison.”
The event was hosted by the Department of Polymer Science and Engineering and sponsored by that department, the Office of Global Affairs, the UMass Amherst Institute for Hierarchical Manufacturing, and the Center for University of Massachusetts-Industry Research on Polymers. (January 2025)