Letter From Kevin..........2-3

New Faculty Feature Articles..........4-7

Student Highlights.........10-11

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FALL 2008

New faculty Michele Manuel and Shirley Meng

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graduating PhDs attended along with representatives of Vistakon, US Steel, Nucor Corp., Sandia National Labora-tories, Rolls Royce and Siemens. The students spent several hours talking with representatives and enjoying dinner courtesy of the companies. It proved to be a great networking oppor-tunity for the students, and it provided the companies early contact to many great MSE students in a single venue. We will have the next workshop Jan. 21, 2009 and would welcome any compa-nies interested in joining us. Last month we also started the REM (Research Experience in Materials) program for freshmen undergraduates. The REM program offers the opportunity for freshmen and sophomores to get paid to work in a laboratory along side graduate students on a research project. This program has shown to dramati-cally reduce attrition of engineering undergraduates by allowing them to understand how the fundamentals they are learning in their classes are applied to a real research project. We had more than 60 applicants for the

It is great to be a Florida Gator. Over the past year, we hired two outstand-ing young faculty, Shirley Meng and Michele Manuel. You will learn more about these great women in articles in this newsletter. We were also excited to see the Florida Energy Systems Consor-tium (FESC) was funded by the State of Florida. Many MSE faculty, including Eric Wachsman, were instrumental in writing the proposal that lead to this $58 million center. The center will sup-port a variety of energy research in the department ranging from solid oxide fuel cells to batteries to organic and inorganic photovoltaics research. In other research news, the clinical trials of a new method of cancer drug delivery involving drug encapsulation in albu-min spheres is progressing well. This new delivery technology was developed by Gene Goldberg and his group and enables much greater quantities of the cancer drug to be delivered with far fewer adverse side effects. Last month the department had its second MSE career workshop. More than 200 students ranging from freshmen to

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a letter from kevin

It is both an exciting and challenging time for UF

Materials Science & Engineering.

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and our students continue to be in great demand. UF-MSE is working to be the best MSE program in the country, and with your help we will continue to be successful.

All the Best and Go Gators!

Kevin S. JonesProfessor & Chair

program, and – thanks to the gener-ous gifts from both Vistakon and Wally Rhines – we were able to place 20 of these outstanding students into labo-ratories. Along these lines, this past summer six undergraduates were able to attend the National Institute for Nano Engineering (NINE) workshop at San-dia National Laboratories. The students spent a week at Sandia touring laborato-ries and learning more about nanotech-nology. The goal of the program is to excite students about engineering, and Regan Stinnott at Sandia was a tremen-dous host. This is the second year UF has sent students to this program, and to date all of the students who have at-tended are still in engineering. Finally, we are gearing up for the 50th anniversary of the department next year. In 1959 Fred Rhines left Carnegie Mellon University with a dream to come to UF and establish a program based on all areas of Materials Science and Engi-neering. This was a novel idea that was just being explored nationally. From these modest beginnings, the UF-MSE Department has grown to be one of the

largest programs in the country with 31 faculty members and more than 430 students. It is currently ranked eighth at both the undergraduate and gradu-ate level in both public and private universities according to the U.S. News & World Report. Next fall we will have a great celebration, and I will keep you informed as to when and where. The 50th anniversary could not come at a better time. As with most of the states in the country, Florida is experiencing challenging financial times. This has resulted in more than a 10 percent cut to the university last year and an antici-pated 10 percent cut next year. So far the cuts have been across the board, so the department saw a significant cut in state resources last year – and we are anticipating another cut. We have tre-mendous momentum and do not want this to be slowed by these cuts. As such, we are going to be asking our alumni to help us continue to do great things (see the back page). We see UF-Materials Science and Engineering as an enabler for a strong technology based economy,

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a letter from kevin

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feature articles new faculty

MIchElE ManUEl

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Before she said goodbye to UF’s materials science department six years ago, Michele Manuel told her academic adviser, “I’m going to be back as a faculty member.” The next few years and her desire to be an engineer took her to Northwestern University, NASA and General Motors, and eventually the prediction she made as a student came true this January. That was when Manuel joined MSE as an assistant professor and director of the Materials Design & Prototyping Laboratory. She began teaching a gradu-ate-level course in materials design in the fall. In the lab, Manuel specializes in ma-terials design. She uses a systems-based materials approach to develop structural and smart materials. These include mag-nesium and self-healing alloy composites. “[Design is] important because we’re in an economic time when people want materials faster and cheaper,” she said.

Instead of developing materials by trial and error and searching for possible ways to apply them, materials design develops materials in response to a need. For example, cars are becoming increasingly heavy because of added technology. “So they need to take the weight off someplace else,” she said. “The easiest way to shave the weight off is to make the structural parts lighter. But at the same time, it must be safe.” Right now Manuel is working with GM to develop a lightweight, low-cost magnesium alloy to make cars lighter, including battery-powered and electric vehicles. Manuel is also developing a self-heal-ing metal, so when autonomous vehicles like spacecrafts or unmanned aerial vehicles get damaged, they can “realize” the problem and fix themselves. The project consists of high-strength metal that is reinforced with shape mem-ory alloy wires. After being damaged, the wires close the cracks in the metal, which is heated until liquid beads of metal form

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at the crack’s surface. The liquid covers the crack, which “heals” as it cools. “The only problem is, it’s limited by the cost,” Manuel said. “So, you really want to use it in situations when you don’t have extra parts around or it’s very difficult to [reach] a broken part.” Manuel worked with NASA and GM as a visiting research scientist before becoming a professor at UF — and before she was a professor, Manuel was a stu-dent in the MSE department. Unlike a lot of students, Manuel knew as a freshman what she wanted to study. Her interest in engineering began at an early age. Her hometown is Crest-view, Fla., which is just outside one of the largest Air Force bases in the world, Eglin Air Force Base. Being from a military family, Manuel grew up around military planes and other advanced technology. In high school she spent her sum-mers as an intern in the Air Force Office of Scientific Research apprenticeship pro-gram, which sparked a lifelong interest in materials science.

“It was so cool,” Manuel said. “It was crazy to see all that advanced technology at the high-school level. It was just like, ‘wow, this is something I’d like to do for a long time.’” When it was time for college, Manuel said choosing UF for her bachelor’s de-gree was easy — she went to the best materials science department in the state. For graduate school Manuel went to Northwestern University, and that’s where she got her first taste of teaching. She agreed to be a teaching assistant for her adviser’s materials design class. “I struggled through it the first time, but at the end, people said, ‘Oh, I really get it now.’ I realized that you can make a difference,” Manuel said. “I liked the feel-ing that it was the class where the light came on finally.” After several years of lecturing, teaching labs and having her students win national contests, Manuel was certain she wanted to be a professor. She is delighted to be back in Gaines-ville, even though becoming a professor

in a university where she was once a student took a few adjustments, she jokes. “I remember when I came for my interview, I was calling everyone ‘Profes-sor So-and-So,’” she said. “I still think of them as ‘professor.’ It just comes auto-matically out of my mouth.” Manuel is busy with researching and teaching, and the feedback she’s receiv-ing — most recently, a 2009 Young Leader Professional Development Award from The Minerals, Metals and Materials Soci-ety — is further proof she chose the right profession. “I finally realized that being a profes-sor is all the best things about being an engineer and a teacher rolled into one.”

— Marilee GriffiN

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Shirley Meng’s journey started in Hang-zhou, a city in China so legendary for its beauty, it’s known as “paradise on earth.” Now she’s at UF, where she recently joined the MSE department faculty as assistant professor and director of the Laboratory for Energy Storage and Conservation. Meng’s research area, energy storage, has the potential to make the rest of the world a little more like paradise. Meng is focused on extending the energy density and life of batteries by developing new materials through ex-perimental techniques and computation modeling methods. “We want to double the energy density of today’s battery technology,” she said. Energy storage is one of the major is-sues in deployment of renewable energies.

“The problem is they’re not control-lable – we can’t ask the sun to come out at night – so for the effective usage of those sources, we have to have a good energy storage system.” Electrochemical-energy storage systems, such as lithium ion batteries, can also be a solution to environmental friendly transportation, such as plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (HEV), said Meng. Lithium batteries have a higher energy density, longer cycle life, and more flexible design than other battery technologies – making them a promising source of mobile energy for vehicles. If the life of these batteries can be extended, hybrid electric cars will be more reliable and effective. “The challenge here is, how can we pack as much lithium as possible into a small volume of battery and still make it safe?” One of the goals Meng has for her lab is to help establish hybrid electric vehicles as a means of viable transportation. She believes cars like her own Prius will be a

ShIrlEy MEng

feature articles new faculty

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much bigger deal in the near future -- and her research could be a contributing factor. “I do believe, if I do a good job, I will have some impact on the way people live,” she said. Meng’s father was a firm believer that engineering impacts lives. When Meng was choosing a career path, her father, a civil engineer, explained engineers “have a substance in their work. They can make something and see how it works.” Meng was inspired by her father who graduated from Tsinghua University in Beijing, China in 1966. Her mother, a certified accountant, was also an inspiration to Meng. “My mother really showed me how a woman can balance between career and family.” As a child, Meng bugged her parents with countless unanswerable questions. “I always asked, ‘why this? why that?’” In hindsight, her curiosity was probably an early sign that a career in science and engineering was a good fit. In fact, it was curiosity that eventually led Meng to materials science. She came

to a crossroad as an undergraduate at Nanyang Technological University in Sin-gapore when she had to choose a major. A professor helped her understand what materials science was – and it reminded her of her childhood questions. Why is glass transparent? Why are diamonds hard? Why is metal reflective? Materials science had the answers. “Everything can be explained by the atomic structures and electronic struc-tures,” she said. “That’s what I’m curious about, how things work in a certain way.” While pursuing a Ph.D. in materials science, Meng enrolled in the Singapore-MIT Alliance Program, which eventually allowed her to spend time at the Massa-chusetts Institute of Technology. “MIT had a very strong influence on me,” she said. “To any crazy idea, they won’t say, ‘that’s crazy.’ They’ll say, ‘tell me more about it.’” One semester turned into six years after her adviser helped her stay. After finishing a Ph.D., Meng completed two

years of post-doctoral research and one year as a research associate at MIT. Ever since she was an undergradu-ate, Meng planned on being a professor. “I met very good professors along the way,” she said, “and when I look at their lives, I think, ‘that’s the kind of life I want to have. I can learn something new every day.’” Meng, who moved to Gainesville in January, looked forward to teaching the graduate-level class, “advanced materials for energy storage and conversion,” in the fall. She previously taught an undergrad course at MIT, and enjoys it when stu-dents ask challenging questions, because she gets to learn as well, she said. “The students I work with are very young and energetic,” said Meng. “Later, when I’m in my 60s, I’ll still be work-ing with 20- and 30-year-old brilliant graduate students. It must be a lot of fun. Professors can keep a very young heart even when their hair is gray.”

— Marilee GriffiN

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On Monday, September 22nd, 2008 from 5:30 p.m. until 9 p.m., the Department of Materials Science and Engineering hosted its second semi-annual UF-MSE Career Workshop at the Emerson Alumni Hall. The goal is to give MSE students – from freshmen to Ph.D. candidates – and post-docs the opportu-nity to network, fine-tune their résumés, sign up for internships, and even obtain employment with great companies. This semester, Nucor Corp., Rolls

UF-MSE career Workshop

Royce with the Institute of Materials, Minerals, and Mining, Sandia National Laboratories, Siemens, U.S. Steel, and Vistakon came to recruit and network with more than 200 students and post-docs. Everyone was treated to dinner catered by Moe’s Southwest Grill. The students and post-docs received door prizes. Students and post-docs responded very well to the event. They were excited to have the chance to think about their careers after graduation and gain valuable contacts. Of course, they enjoyed the prizes as well. The recruiters also enjoyed themselves. The companies had better access to MSE students and are able to help fill the need for technical internships and positions. Each representative said they would love to return. The third semi-annual UF MSE Career Workshop is tentatively scheduled for Wednesday, Jan 21, 2009, from 5:30 p.m. until 9 p.m. at Holloway Touchdown Terrace. All interested parties may contact Meredith Shadwill at (352) 846-3305 or mshad@mse.ufl.edu.

alumni newsNext year the Department of Materials Science and Engineering will be celebrating its 50th anniversary. In 1959, Frederick N. Rhines left Carnegie Mellon to start our department here at UF. Since that time, we have graduated over 1800 students (974 BS, 366 terminal MS and 531 PhDs), and we want to be sure to keep you informed as to the reunion celebration plans for next year. The first thing is to try to find everyone. So, we have set up both a Linked In website (http://www.linkedin.com/pub/b/188/16) and a Facebook page (http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=29384254804) for alumni of the department. Please go to these websites and sign up. If you know fellow graduates, please forward this information on to them as well so we can get everyone linked in. Second we will be launching a new opportunity for you to share your experiences with fellow alumni and friends of the department. If you have a story about your experience at UF – how an experience in MSE im-pacted your life, some funny story during your time in MSE, talking about your favorite professor, etc. – similar to NPR’s Story Corp, create a recording of you telling the story and send us the MP3 file. The best way to do this is to use a digital recorder, share your story with a friend or family member, and record the 1-10 minute conversation. You can also create the audio clip using your laptop computer. If you go to the website and click on (http://alumni.mse.ufl.edu/listen), you can upload “Share your Story”, you can upload your audio clip. Include a title and your name (Mary Smith BS ’89). We will set up a page on the MSE website to show-case these stories as part of the celebration of our 50th anniversary. We look forward to hearing from you!

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During the week of June 23rd, 2008, the Depart-ment of Materials Science and Engineering hosted the MSE Teach workshop. Sponsored in part by ASM International and in part by the department, the MSE Teach workshop teaches

middle and high school teachers how to conduct simple labs that can be done in the classroom without high-tech equipment and keep students engaged. These teachers then bring back their knowledge and enhance the educational awareness of ma-terials science and engineering to their middle and high school students. As the master teacher, Andy Nydam, said, “the goal of the workshop is to equip the teachers with a bag of tricks to engage students and teach real science.” This year’s group was unique and included two UF alumni. Each day they started working on labs early in the morning and worked late into the evening. All the teachers in attendance had a great time learning and participating in the workshop. Andy Nydam was especially pleased with this year’s group and the success they achieved. In fact, one teacher said that the workshop took care of his first nine weeks of classes. Brian Fromang, a teacher from Vero Beach, shared a profound thought with the group regarding the relevance of materials science and engineering to everyday life – “I touch everything, everyday the things I throw away – without real-izing they’re science.”

MSE teach

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student

Christopher DosCh is an undergraduate student in Jacob Jones’ research group. He is a junior, and this is his second year working in Jones’ re-search group. He started as an REM student and is continuing on a grant supported by NSF. Chris has been developing processing techniques for lead-free piezoceramic materials for sensors, actuators, medi-cal imaging devices, ultrasound, sonar, etc. His work includes both solid state ceramic processing tech-niques and in situ, high temperature X-ray diffraction during the high-temperature calcination process. We are learning a lot about the intermediate crystalline phases that evolve during solid state processing and lead to the final perovskite crystal structure. Even as a junior, he will present this work at the American Ceramic Society’s Daytona Beach meeting this Janu-ary. He has also been elected to the President’s Council of Student Advisors for the American Ceramic Society, an organization that coordinates activities for students at conferences sponsored by the society. In addition, he was selected to participate in the NSF-sponsored “International Research Experiences for Students,” a program coordinated by Jacob Jones and Juan Nino. This program will send Chris to Darmstadt, Germany in November to measure how quickly these ceramics respond to electric fields. He will work with leading German scientists who are experts in property charac-terization of piezoceramics.

MaxiMe LeMaitre is a PhD candidate in Dr. Rolf Hummel’s research group. He is currently conducting research to develop techniques for fabricating pristine, large-area graphene suitable for use in next-genera-tion electronics and fundamental condensed-matter research. He has designed a novel two-step synthesis method that combines chemical functionalization and a kinetically controlled transfer printing technique to produce ordered arrays of graphene nanostructures on a variety of substrates. These structures will be used to develop integrated circuits based on room-temperature graphene transistors. The technique also allows for the fabrication of graphene-insulator-gra-phene devices to explore the electron-electron correla-tions that are ubiquitous in the physics of exotic quan-tum transport phenomena such as integer quantum Hall effect, quantum coherence, and superconductiv-ity. Max initiated and designed the research plan independently and used his candidacy proposal to recruit faculty members willing to support the project – resulting in collaborations with an interdisciplinary group of professors from physics, electrical engineer-ing, and materials science. Although there are risks involved in undertaking such a project, the academic growth associated with designing and executing a complete research project is invaluable.

highlights

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From July 27th until August 2nd, six students went to Sandia National Laboratory as part of the Students Under-standing Nanotechnology program (SUN) sponsored by Sandia’s National Institute of Nano Engineering (NINE) community week. Undergraduates Scott Brown, Steven James, David Paredes, Kevin Seymour, and Adam Wilk represented our department, and Tracey Hanna attended from chemical engineering. Thanks to the sponsors at Sandia, these students were afforded the opportunity to explore and learn about nanotechnology, the opportunities within the field, and how nanotechnology is improving standards of living. This year they focused on nanotech-nology’s applications to solve energy needs. The SUN students were very thankful for the experience. Tracey Hanna and David Paredes both raved about how excited they were about nanotechnology and all the opportunities involved within the field. Both plan to become more involved in nanotechnology in the future, with Tracey looking for a research position in nanotechnology here at UF and David hoping to become involved in MEMS. On the last night of their visit, Regan Stinett of Sandia welcomed the group to his home for a get-together.

the SUn Program sends students to Sandia n.l.

Undergraduate Scholar awardees 2008-2009

Adamson ScholarshipsAftab Bhanvandia Andrew BilelloVincent CassidyTilman ChambersDavid FutchAriel GonzalezKathryn HarrisRyan HooperSteven JamesRobert KasseSagar Kumar Laura Villada

Connell Scholarships Adria Suarez

Grodsky Scholarships Brian BabcoxJon Besser Aftab BhanvandiaAndrew BilelloDerek BobekMichael BradyVincent CassidyTilman ChambersChristina ChangLeonardo Del ValleCaitlin DennisChristopher DoschMatthew Downs Lisa Ferrera David FutchMarta Giachino Amelia Gladman

Ariel GonzalezKathryn HarrisJoshua HarrisRyan HooperYuchen HuoSteven JamesRobert KasseBen KowalskiSagar KumarJessica LedermanPeter MartinRudy MendozaHeather MeredithDonald MooreDavid MooreKevin NardoneJiaomin OuyangJoelle PayneSasha Perkins

Joshua RollandAleksandr RygalovRoss SacharowAkito SakataJose SanchezKevin SeymourJonathan SolomonFrederick Steffy Adria Suarez Felicia SvedlundSrinivasan Venkatesh Laura VilladaAlice WangAdam WilkCorey WilsonDorothy Wise Jessica WoodenHeather Zannit Douglas Zhang

Jack Zhang

Reed-HillScholarships Yuchen Huo

Rhines-TarrScholarships Michael BradyCaitlin DennisMatthew Downs David MooreJiaomin OuyangJoelle PayneJose SanchezFrederick Steffy Alice WangCorey Wilson Douglas Zhang

Thanks to all the wonderful donations from friends and Alumni we have raised over $40,000 for the Richard Connell undergraduate scholarship. This fall we were delighted to award the first Connell Scholarship.

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Department of Materials Science & EngineeringP.O. Box 116400Gainesville, FL 32611-6400

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Contact information

Kevin S. Jones, Professor & Chair Department of Materials Science & EngineeringUniversity of FloridaP.O. Box 116400Gainesville, FL 32611-6400

Phone: 352-846-3781Fax: 352-392-7219www.mse.ufl.edu

Managing Editor Kevin Jones

associatE Editors Matthew Walters

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PhotograPhErs Cassandra Seda

Meredith Shadwill

dEsignEr Linda Corsair

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