Core Faculty:

F. Hadley Cocks, Professor - A wide variety of areas in materials science, including crystal growth, mechanical properties of kidney stones, lunar science, diffraction optics, materials for radiation detection, and radiation shielding.

Stefano Curtarolo, Associate Professor - Dr. Curtarolo's research focuses on nanoscale science of energy; computational materials science; nanotube growth characterization; alloy theory; superlubricity on quasicrystals; superconductivity in metal borides; genetic approaches to QM predictions of materials structures; and materials for nuclear detection.

Chuan Hua Chen, Assistant Professor - Dr. Chen's research involves physicochemical hydrodynamics at the micro and nanoscale where transport and interfacial phenomena closely interact with each other. Two core subjects are electrohydrodynamic transport for fluid manipulation at both nanometer and nanosecond scales, and bioinspired interfaces for capillarity-driven autonomous microsystems. We are closely integrating experiment and theory to develop innovative microfluidics and nanofluidics for applications ranging from biochemical assays to microelectronics cooling.

John E. Dolbow, Associate Professor - Theoretical and applied mechanics, computational fracture mechanics, nonlinear interfacial constitutive laws, finite element and mesh free methods.

Josiah Knight, Associate Professor - Dr. Knight's research focues on fluid mechanics, thermodynamics, heat transfer, and dynamics

Anne A Lazarides, Assistant Professor - Dr. Lazarides' research focuses on understanding how nanoscale structure controls the static and dynamic properties of bioinorganic materials and using this knowledge to design nanostructures and materials with useful properties; and developing theoretical methods that make it possible to predict properties of nanostructures from properties of the components and are pursuing experimental studies of nanoscale structure.

Tod A. Laursen, Professor and Chair - Dr. Laursen's research focuses on continuum mechanics, engineering analysis, finite element methods, and the use of finite element methods for the solution of nonlinear problems, with a special interest in the modeling of physical systems exhibiting contact and friction phenomena in the presence of large deformations, inelasticity, and other sources of nonlinearity.

Piotr E Marszalek, Professor - Dr. Marszalek's research focuses on exploiting atomic force microscope (AFM) for studies involving bio-molecules, particularly DNA damage and repair.

David Needham, Professor - Dr. Needham’s research program combines the fields of materials science with colloid and surface chemistry focusing on “Biological and other Soft Wet Materials.” The program is in the general area of forming, coating and encapsulation of solid, liquid and gaseous particles in the colloidal size range (10 nanometers to 10 micrometers). It deals more specifically with the material properties of 2-phase micro and nanosystems, such as surfactants, lipid monolayers, lipid bilayer membranes, micelles, liposomes, hydrogels, wax particles, emulsions, microdroplets, gas bubbles, microcrystals, microglasses, polymer microspheres, and blood and cancer cells. It is also concerned with the adhesion and repulsion between particle surfaces involving molecular structures at interfaces including repulsive interactions due to the presence of grafted water-soluble polymers and specific interactions between receptors-ligand pairs. Such materials property measurements and inter particle interactions require specialized experimental equipment, and the principal experimental approach is that of micropipet manipulation, to manipulate individual and pairs of micro particles and cells in controlled solution environments. Previous NIH/NCI research grants, focused on experiments and theory concerning: 1) molecular exchange and defect formation in lipid vesicle membranes, (specifically involving the partitioning of amphipathic molecules like surfactants, drugs, pH sensitive polymers, and fusogenic peptides); and 2) Novel thermally sensitive drug delivery system for treatment of solid tumors. Research topics currently under investigation include: lipid and surfactant monolayers at gas bubble, and liquid emulsion surfaces; diffusion-solubility, crystallization and solidification of polymers, lipids, proteins, inorganic crystals and drugs from 2 phase microsystems, including degradable PLGA polymer microspheres. The latter is currently funded through an NIH grant entitled, “Microsphere Engineering for Proteins as Drugs.” Particular applications of these materials and materials processing concepts are in drug delivery, specifically, the temperature-triggered drug release in solid tumors, and lately formulations of more hydrophobic drugs as emulsions and of proteins in polymer microspheres. Information gained in this work is directed towards, for example, improved image contrast agents, drug delivery systems that use lipids and polymers to create micro- and nano-capsules and monolayer coatings. The temperature-sensitive liposome systems are being tested pre-clinically and now clinically with collaborators in the Duke Medical Center, specifically with Dr. Mark Dewhirst in Radiation Oncology. New research is focusing on organic-inorganic nano composites derived from simple surfactants, and new bilayer model systems for studying and using single protein channel activity with collaborators at Oxford University, UK.

Teh Y. Tan, Professor - Dr. Tan's research focuses on impurity diffusion mechanisms and point defects in silicon and III-V compounds; line defects; precipitation and gettering; kinetic processes of defect evolution; x-ray scattering and electron microscopy; and crystal growth in nano-scale.

Benjamin B. Yellen, Assistant Professor - Dr. Yellen's research focuses on theoretical and experimental studies on concentration gradients arising in ionic fluids and magnetic liquids.

Stefan Zauscher, Alfred M. Hunt Faculty Scholar and Associate Professor - Dr. Zauscher's research focuses on nano-mechanical and nano-tribological characterization (elasticity, friction, adhesion) of materials including organic thin films; self-assembled monolayers, polymeric gels, and cellulosics; fabrication of polymeric nanostructures by scanning probe lithography; colloidal probe and atomic force microscopy; single molecule force spectroscopy applied to ligand-receptor binding; and biomolecular nano- and micro sensors.

Xuanhe Zhao, Assistant Professor (effective 7/1/10) - Dr. Zhao's current research centers on soft active materials (SAMs), which include dielectric elastomers, hydrogels, magnetic polymers, and muscles. By integrating experiment and theory, Zhao is studying the behaviors of SAMs driven by multiple thermodynamic forces (e.g., stress, electric field, magnetic field, chemical potential), and exploring applications in various areas such as drug delivery, tissue engineering, energy harvesting, robotics, microfluidics, and water treatment.