Materials Science & Engineering News

Learn more about the recent research accomplishments, contributions, and awards of our Materials Science and Engineering faculty members and students.

How Layered Crystals Make Heat Swirl

A new study shows that layered crystals such as graphite and hBN can support fluid-like heat vortices and resonant temperature waves, opening new possibilities for controlling thermal signals. More

May 08 2026 | Columbia Quantum Initiative

Wentzcovitch Named AGU College of Fellows Distinguished Lecturer

Prof. Wentzcovitch has been selected to serve as an American Geophysical Union (AGU) College of Fellows Distinguished Lecturer for the 2026–2027 academic year, More

Aug 04 2026

2026 APAM Graduate Research Fellowship & Award Winners

Join us in celebrating the APAM NSF GRFP and DOE SCGSR fellowship winners More

May 21 2026

Wentzcovitch Named PIFI Distinguished Scientist by the Chinese Academy of Sciences

Renata Wentzcovitch has been named a PIFI Distinguished Scientist by the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) More

Jul 21 2026

APAM Students Shine at the 2026 Senior Design Expo

Materials Science undergrads presented projects at the annual Senior Design Expo that spanned materials science, applied physics, applied mathematics, and More

May 19 2026

A Quiet Quantum Revolution in Earth’s Deep Interior

A subtle change in iron ions’ electronic configuration produces a measurable difference in seismic wave speeds through mantle rocks. More

Jun 22 2026 | Eos

Inverse Design Enables Complex 3D Nanoparticle Architectures

Researchers, including Columbia Engineering faculty Oleg Gang, Nanfang Yu, and Sanat Kumar, have developed a powerful inverse-design strategy that enables the More

Jun 11 2026

MSE Alum, Tom Caulfield, Named 2026 Columbia Engineering Graduate Class Day Speaker

Materials Science & Engineering Alum, Tom Caulfield, is the 2026 Columbia Engineering Graduate Class Day Speaker More

Mar 30 2026 | Columbia Engineering New

Memorial Service for Prof. Katayun Barmak

A memorial service celebrating the life and legacy of Prof. Katayun (Katy) Barmak, the Philips Electronics Professor of Applied Physics and Applied Mathematics More

May 14 2026

Wentzcovitch wins the Bridgman Award

Renata Wentzcovitch has been named the recipient of the 2025 Bridgman Award, a More

Jul 17 2025

Scientists Edge Closer to Affordable Superconductors

Novel materials could eventually power electric vehicles and more, say Columbia researchers. More

May 02 2025 | Columbia Magazine

DNA Helps Electronics to Leave Flatland

These miniature scaffolds for 3D circuits are designed to assemble themselves. More

Apr 03 2025 | Columbia Engineering

New Battery Technology Could Boost Renewable Energy Storage

Columbia Engineers develop new powerful battery "fuel" -- an electrolyte that not only lasts longer but is also cheaper to produce. More

Sep 16 2024 | By Holly Evarts | Photo Credit: Image courtesy of Yuan Yang lab

In Memoriam: Prof. Katayun (Katy) Barmak

With a heavy heart, we mourn the passing of Prof. Katayun (Katy) Barmak, the Philips Electronics Professor of Applied Physics and Applied Mathematics. More

Feb 09 2026

Shi Named Top Under 30 Chinese-American Elite

Dr. Changmin Shi, (MS '19) was named in the 2024 ‘Top Under 30 Chinese-American Youth Elite List’ in recognition of his contributions to innovation, More

Mar 28 2024

Xscape Photonics Announces $37 Million in New Funding, Launches Eight-Wavelength Laser for AI Data Center Networks

Funding increases total Series A investment to $81M, doubles company valuation and accelerates development of multi-color AI data center fabric platform More

Mar 12 2026 | Businesswire.com

A New Electrolyte Points to Stronger, Safer Batteries

The new material brings researchers closer to achieving the long-held goal of anode-free lithium batteries with long cycle life and enhanced thermal stability. More

Feb 20 2026 | Columbia Engineering News

Need a New 3D Material? Build It With DNA

A new approach breaks down complicated designs into modular building blocks for easy assembly from the bottom up. More

Jul 14 2025 | Columbia Engineering News

Barmak: Using Nanotechnology to Uncover Details of a Medieval Manuscript

Prof. Katayun Barmak was featured in the Columbia News article, "Using Nanotechnology to Uncover Details of a Medieval Manuscript" More

Feb 06 2024 | Columbia News

Celebrating the Retirement of Professor Irving P. Herman

After a long and distinguished career at Columbia University, Irving P. Herman has retired and is now the Edwin Howard Armstrong Professor Emeritus of Applied More

Feb 23 2024

Yang Wins 2024 CUAFA Young Investigator Award

Prof. Yuan Yang has received the Columbia University Asian Faculty Association (CUAFA) 2024 Young Investigator Award More

Jan 30 2024

Professor Emeritus Daniel N. Beshers (1928-2024)

We mourn the loss and celebrate the life of Professor Emeritus Daniel N. Beshers More

Jan 29 2024

Automated Grain Boundary Detection for Bright-Field Transmission Electron Microscopy Images via U-Net

Researchers led by principle investigator Professor Katayun Barmak have developed the first generalizable and automated approach to identifying grain boundaries More

Nov 30 2023

Materials Science Demonstration and Presentation at the Spence School

Katayun Barmak and graduate student Matthew Patrick visited The Spence School, a local all-girls high school, to give a talk during their Research Scientist More

Nov 30 2023

Barmak Named 2023 Fellow of ASM International Society

Katayun Barmak, the Philips Electronics Professor, was named a Fellow of the ASM International Society More

Apr 26 2023

Billinge Named Flack Lecturer for the Swiss Society for Crystallography

Simon Billinge was named the Flack Lecturer for the 2023 Howard Flack Lecture Series of the Swiss Society for Crystallography SGK/SSCr in November 2023 More

Nov 20 2023

New research is helping scientists better understand how microstructures change

A team of materials scientists and applied mathematicians, including Prof. Katayun Barmak, developed a mathematical model that more accurately describes such More

Apr 24 2023 | Phys.org

Pets, Politics and Pandemics

Prof. Simon Billinge has launched a new open course on systems theory More

Feb 22 2023 | Coursera

Billinge's Research Published in Nature Materials

Simon Billinge's newest paper, "Dynamic crystallography reveals spontaneous anisotropy in cubic GeTe," published in Nature Materials More

Feb 21 2023 | Nature Materials

Yang Receives DURIP Award

Yuan Yang was awarded an instrument from the Defense University Research Instrumentation Program (DURIP) program. More

Nov 28 2022

Quantum Phase Transition Detected on a Global Scale Deep Inside the Earth

Spin transition discovered in the Earth’s mantle; finding will improve understanding the Earth’s interior, and enable better understanding of tectonic events More

Oct 12 2021 | By Holly Evarts | Visua Credit: Nicoletta Barolini/Columbia Engineering

Wentzcovitch Named President-elect of AGU’s Mineral and Rock Physics Section

Renata Wentzcovitch, professor of material science and applied physics, and earth and environmental sciences, has been named president-elect for the American More

Nov 17 2022 | AGU.org

Seeing More Deeply into Nanomaterials

New 3D imaging tool reveals engineered and self-assembled nanoparticle lattices with highest resolution yet—7nm—about 1/100,000 of the width of a human hair More

Apr 13 2022 | By Holly Evarts | Photo Credit: Oleg Gang/Columbia Engineering

Barmak and Colleagues Win AFOSR MURI Award for Precision Testing and Evaluation of Computer Chips

Katayun Barmak and colleagues have won a highly-competitive Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative (MURI) Award from the Air Force Office Scientific More

Mar 28 2022

Yang Named 2021 Materials Today Rising Star Awardee

Yuan Yang has been named one of the 2021 Materials Today Rising Star Award Winners More

Jan 20 2022 | Materials Today

Simon Billinge Mentors Student-Led Team That Wins $60,000 Google Research Award

Project will improve computational capabilities for researchers in East Africa through a local organization that trains PhD students in materials science More

Jan 06 2022 | By Allison Chen

Mary Rose Conservation Project Featured by Numerous Media Outelts

Simon Bilinge is part of an international team who has applied a new method - ctPDF - to discover potentially harmful substances within the Mary Rose’s wooden More

Nov 04 2021

Billinge: Researchers Use New X-ray Technique to Conserve Henry VIII’s Favorite Warship

International team applied new method--ctPDF--developed at Columbia Engineering and the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility to discover potentially harmful More

Oct 28 2021 | Columbia Engineering News

Barmak and Colleagues Win the Prestigious NSF DMREF Award for Microstructure by Design

Katayun Barmak and her colleagues won a 4-year $1.8 million National Science Foundation 'Designing Materials to Revolutionize and Engineer our Future' (DMREF) More

Sep 28 2021

Uncovering Hidden Local States in a Quantum Material

By heating the material, scientists discovered states of local broken symmetry, which may enable the technologically relevant properties—such as those for More

Jul 06 2021 | Brookhaven National Laboratory

Barmak Paper Featured on Cover of Journal of Applied Physics

Barmak's paper is featured on the cover page as a featured article More

Oct 04 2021

Building Tough 3D Nanomaterials with DNA

Columbia Engineers use DNA nanotechnology to create highly resilient synthetic nanoparticle-based materials that can be processed through conventional More

Mar 19 2021 | By Holly Evarts | Photos and Animation Oleg Gang/Columbia Engineering

Billinge - Think Like an Engineer

Simon Billinge and his group uses AI to invent stronger, more sustainable materials More

Jun 24 2021 | Columbia Engineering Magazine

Yang Wins 3M Award

Yuan Yang, Associate Professor of Materials Science and Engineering, has won a 3M Non-tenured Faculty Award. More

May 19 2021

Barmak Serves on Organizing Committee for SIAM Conference on Mathematical Aspects of Materials Science

May 19 2021

Yang featured in Scientific American

Yuan Yang comments on a new study published in ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces More

May 21 2021 | Scientific American

Billinge Applies Data Science to Scientific Domains

Research from Prof. Simon Billinge and colleagues was recently published in the article, "Active Reaction Control of Cu Redox State Based on Real-Time Feedback More

Oct 28 2020 | JACS

2020 MSE Senior Design Project

May 08 2020

A rainbow of layered paints could help buildings to keep their cool

Apr 30 2020 | Nature

Enabling New DNA-Based Therapy For Anti-Cancer Drug Delivery

Scientists designed a tunable peptide-like molecular coating that enables 3-D DNA origami to maintain their structural integrity and functionality in different More

Mar 13 2020 | By Brookhaven National Laboratory | Images Courtesy of Brookhaven National Laboratory

Gold in Limbo Between Solid and Melted States

Mar 02 2020 | Brookhaven National Laboratory | BNL Newsroom

Billinge Wins EPDIC Distinguished Powder Diffractionist Prize

Jan 09 2020

Prof Oleg Gang Makes 3-D Nanosuperconductors with DNA

Complex 3-D nanoscale architectures based on DNA self-assembly can conduct electricity without resistance and may provide a platform for fabricating quantum More

Nov 10 2020 | By Ariana Manglaviti | Illustration Credit: Brookhaven National Laboratory

Nano-objects of Desire: Assembling Ordered Nanostructures in 3-D

Scientists establish new nanofabrication platform for directing nanomaterial components of different natures into 3-D arrays with prescribed organizations; More

Jan 13 2020 | Team Photo Credit: Columbia Engineering | Assembly Schematic Credit: Brookhaven National Laboratory | Platform Schematic and Fluorescence Images: Courtesy of the Nature Materials Paper | VIDEO CREDIT: JANE NISSELSON/COLUMBIA ENGINEERING

Billinge and Barmak: Engineering the Future of Cultural Preservation

Feb 21 2020 | Columbia Engineering Magazine | Columbia Engineering Magazine

Yang Named One of MIT Technology Review's 'Innovators Under 35'

Prof. Yuan Yang was named one of the "Innovators Under 35" by MIT Technology Review More

Dec 19 2019 | MIT Technology Review

APAM Faculty Featured in Columbia Engineering Magazine

Jan 02 2020 | Columbia Engineering Magazine

Porous Polymer Coatings Dynamically Control Light and Heat

New inexpensive, scalable design takes advantage of the optical switchability of porous polymers; could be used for heating, cooling, and lighting buildings, as More

Oct 21 2019 | By Holly Evarts | PPC Transparency Photo Credit: Jyotirmoy Mandal/Columbia Engineering | Thermoregulation Photo Credit: Jyotirmoy Mandal/Mingxin Jia/Columbia Engineering

Nanoscale Sculpturing Leads to Unusual Packing of Nanocubes

Understanding this behavior is key to engineering new materials with specific desired properties More

May 17 2019

New Method Increases Energy Density in Lithium Batteries

Novel technique may lead to longer battery life in portable electronics and electrical vehicles More

Oct 24 2016 | By Holly Evarts

Understanding Cobalt Oxide - A Promising Artificial Photosynthesis Catalyst

Jun 16 2019

Michal Lipson Elected to National Academy of Sciences

Lipson was named in recognition of her “continuing and distinguished achievements in original research.” More

Apr 30 2019 | By Joanne Hvala | Photo courtesy of Michal Lipson

2019 Senior Design Expo

May 09 2019

Dr. Norman Nan Shi Wins 2019 Simon Prize Award

May 14 2019

SWE Hosts Women in Engineering Day

May 07 2019 | By Joanne Hvala | Agrawal, Chilton Photo Credit: Timothy Lee Photographers | Di, Obermeyer Photo Credit: Jeffrey Schifman

Liu Wins American Crystallographic Association Student Presenter Award

Aug 01 2019

MSE News Archive

How Surface Ligands Influence the Lattice Dynamics of Cadmium Selenide Quantum Dot Nanoparticles (3/6/2019)
Noyan Wins 2019 Hanawalt Award (1/15/2019)
The luck of the materials scientist (10/18/2018)
Media Outlets Cover Science Paper by Mandal, Yang, and Yu (9/28/2019)
Wright Receives NumFOCUS Award (9/27/2018)
Chan Elected APS Fellow (9/25/2018)
Terban Wins BNL's 2018 Baumert Ph.D. Thesis Award (5/18/2018)
Billinge Wins 2018 Warren Award (5/8/2018)
Beshers' Research Published in Scientific Reports (12/13/2017)
Öztürk Wins 2017 Sidhu Award (10/12/2017)
Yang Wins 2017 RISE Grant (7/25/2017)
Billinge: Materials of Tomorrow (7/21/2017)
Yang: On the Verge of a Battery-Powered Revolution (7/20/2017)
Gang: Nanoparticles that Put Themselves Together (7/18/2017)
Yang Co-Hosted MRS Spring Meeting Symposium (6/8/2017)
Noyan Presents Opening Lecture at SNSS-21 (5/30/2017)
Bailey's Hybrid Learning Course Redesign and Delivery Award (5/26/2017)
Barmak Receives 2017 SEAS Kim Award for Faculty Involvement (5/16/2017)
Marianetti: High-Performance Computing at Columbia (3/9/2017)
Billinge and Gang Featured in BNL's Top-10 Science Successes of 2016 (1/11/2017)
Marianetti Wins DOE Grant on Phonon Interactions (12/12/2016)
New Faculty Member: Oleg Gang (7/1/2016)
Revealing the Nature of Magnetic Interactions in Manganese Oxide (5/24/2016)
Light Could Become the Dominant Form of Heat Transfer (4/1/2016)
Heat and Light Get Larger at the Nanoscale (3/31/2016)
Barmak: Joint Magnetism and Magnetic Materials and Intermag Conference (2/4/2016)
Billinge: Big Data for Designing Amazingly Useful Materials (10/1/2015)
New MSE Course - BNL's Advanced Tools and Techniques for Material Characterization (9/14/2015)
Q&A: Katayun Barmak (9/7/2015)
Chris Marianetti: Theory Unlocks the Secrets at the Nanoscale (9/7/2015)
Chan Collaborates with Zhejiang University Faculty (9/1/2015)
Billinge Explores Nanoscale Structure of Thin Films (8/18/2015)
Noyan Receives Jenkins Award at X-Ray Conference (8/12/2015)
MSE Students & Researchers Featured on ORNL Site (4/8/2015)
Billinge: Brookhaven Presents Big Data Pilot Projects at Supercomputing Conference (3/18/2015)
Simon Billinge's Research (3/20/2015)
First Scientific Publication from Data Collected at NSLS-II (3/3/2015)
Guha Elected National Academy of Engineering Member (2/6/2015)
Unusual Electronic State Found in New Class of Unconventional Superconductors (12/9/2014)
Neumark Research Cited in 2014 Nobel Prize Release (10/8/2014)
Supercomputers Reveal Strange, Stress-Induced Transformations in World's Thinnest Materials (7/24/2014)
Billinge: Studying the Tiniest of Details (4/28/2014)
Metallic Films for Electronic, Optical and Magnetic Applications (2/21/2014)
Billinge Named Fellow of the Neutron Scattering Society of America (2/10/2014)