Outstanding Early-Career Investigator Award

Outstanding Early-Career Investigator Award Recipients

• Jonathan Rivnay, Northwestern University (2020)
  “for innovative research on an organic semiconductor microstructure and charge transport for electronics and bioelectronics”
  
  
  Jonathan Rivnay is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Northwestern University. Jonathan earned his BSc in 2006 from Cornell University. He then moved to Stanford University where he earned a MSc and PhD degree in Materials Science and Engineering, studying the structure and electronic transport properties of organic electronic materials. In 2012, he joined the Department of Bioelectronics at the Ecole des Mines de Saint-Etienne in France as a Marie Curie post-doctoral fellow, working on conducting polymer-based devices for bioelectronics. He spent 2015-2016 as a member of the research staff in the Printed Electronics group at the Palo Alto Research Center (PARC, a Xerox Co.) before joining the faculty at Northwestern in 2017. He is a recipient of the Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) award from the National Science Foundation (2018), and a research fellowship from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation (2019).
  
  
  
• Sheng Xu, University of California, San Diego (2019)
  “for materials and device designs in biointegrated electronics and stretchable energy systems"
  
  
  Sheng Xu is currently an assistant professor in the Department of Nanoengineering at the University of California, San Diego. He received his BS degree in chemistry and molecular engineering from Peking University and PhD degree in materials science and engineering from Georgia Institute of Technology. Xu worked as a postdoctoral research associate in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His research group currently focuses on crystalline material growth for high-performance energy harvesting devices and biointegrated electronics for health monitoring and human–machine interfaces. His research has been highlighted as “Groundbreaking Research in 2018” by Forbes, “12 innovations that will revolutionize the future of medicine” by National Geographic, and 2018 National Institutes of Health (NIH)-wide end-of-year review. Xu has been recognized by a series of awards, including the MIT Technology Review 35 Innovators Under 35, National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) Technology Development Award, 3M Non-Tenured Faculty Award, the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry Prize for Young Chemists, and the Materials Research Society (MRS) Graduate Student Award.
  
  Sheng Xu talks about his work in this interview from MRS TV. 
  
  
  
• William Chueh, Stanford University (2018)

  “for groundbreaking research on ionic and electronic charge transport and interface chemistry relevant to electrochemical devices" 
  
  William Chueh is an assistant professor in the Department of Materials Science & Engineering and a Center Fellow of the Precourt Institute for Energy at Stanford University. He’s also a faculty scientist at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. He leads a group of more than 20 tackling the challenge of decarbonizing various energy transformation pathways. He received his BS degree in applied physics, MS degree and PhD degree (2010) in materials science from the California Institute of Technology. Prior to joining Stanford in 2012, he was a Distinguished Truman Fellow at Sandia National Laboratories. Chueh has received numerous honors, including the Volkswagen/BASF Science Award for Electrochemistry (2016), the Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award (2016), Sloan Research Fellowship (2016), National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER Award (2015), Solid State Ionics Young Scientist Award (2013), Caltech Demetriades‐Tsafka‐Kokkalis Prize in Energy (2012), and The American Ceramic Society Diamond Award (2008). In 2012, he was named one of the “Top 35 Innovators Under the Age of 35” by MIT Technology Review.

  Chueh talks about his research in this interview from MRS TV.

  
  
• Vanessa Wood, ETH Zürich (2018)
  “for innovative work in visualizing, quantifying and explaining transport processes in material and devices" 
  
  

  Vanessa Wood holds a bachelor's degree in applied physics from Yale University (2005), a master's degree in electrical engineering and computer science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) (2007) and a PhD degree in electrical engineering, MIT (2009). Her doctoral work, with Prof. Vladimir Bulović, focused on the development of quantum dot LED technology. From 2010 to 2011, she was a postdoc in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at  MIT, working with Professors Yet Ming Chiang and Craig Carter on lithium-ion battery flow cell technology. 

  In 2011, Wood was appointed as an assistant professor in the Department of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering at ETH Zürich. She received tenure in 2014 and holds the Chair in Materials and Device Engineering. She won the 2014 Science Prize in Electrochemistry endowed by BASF and Volkswagen Group and is a 2017 World Economic Forum Young Scientist. She is scientific advisor to Battrion AG, a startup founded out of her group in 2015. Wood is currently serving as Head of the Department of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering.

  Wood talks about her research in this interview from MRS TV.
  
  
• Jennifer A. Dionne, Stanford University (2017)
  “for innovating new materials and methods to visualize and control nanometer-scale optical, electronic, and chemical processes in situ" 
  
  Jennifer Dionne is an associate professor of materials science and engineering at Stanford University. Jen received her Ph.D. degree in Applied Physics at California Institute of Technology, advised by Harry Atwater, and B.S. degrees in Physics and Systems & Electrical Engineering from Washington University in St. Louis. Prior to joining Stanford, she served as a postdoctoral researcher in chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley, advised by Paul Alivisatos.  Dionne’s research develops new nano and optical materials for applications ranging from high-efficiency energy conversion and storage to bioimaging and manipulation. This research has led to demonstration of negative refraction at visible wavelengths, design of optical tweezers for nano-specimen trapping, demonstration of a metamaterial fluid, and synthesis of high-efficiency and active upconverting materials. Most recently, Dionne has developed in situ techniques to visualize chemical transformations and light-matter interactions with nanometer-scale spatial resolution. She is the recipient of the Adolph Lomb Medal, Sloan Foundation Fellowship, the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, and the inaugural Kavli Early Career Lectureship in Nanoscience, and was recently featured on Oprah’s list of “50 Things that will make you say ‘Wow’!”. She is also a recipient of the NSF CAREER award, AFOSR Young Investigator Award, and TR-35. When not in the lab, Dionne enjoys teaching three classes (Materials Chemistry, Optoelectronics, and Science of the Impossible), exploring the intersection of art and science, and cycling the latest century. 
  
  
  
• James M. Rondinelli, Northwestern University (2017)

  "for pioneering advances in the theoretical understanding of atomic structure-electronic property relations of complex inorganic oxides in bulk, thin film, and superlattice geometries” 

   

  James M. Rondinelli is the Morris E. Fine Junior Professor in Materials and Manufacturing at Northwestern University in the Materials Science and Engineering (MSE) Department, where he leads the Materials Theory and Design Group. His interests are in electronic structure theory and first-principles design of functional inorganic materials using picoscale structure–property relationships. 
  
  In 2016, he received a Sloan Research Fellowship in Physics, the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE) and the 3M Non-Tenured Faculty Award. Additional honors include a NSF-CAREER Award (2015), DARPA Young Faculty Award (2012) and the ARO Young Investigator Program (YIP) Award (2012). He received the 2014 Ross Coffin Purdy Award from The American Ceramic Society and was named an Emerging Young Investigator by the Royal Society of Chemistry (J. Mater. Chem. C, 2016) and the American Chemical Society (Chem. Mater., 2014). 
  
  Rondinelli has (co)-authored more than 100 peer-reviewed publications and holds one patent. He is a member of the APS, MRS, ACS, TMS, and ACerS, and has organized multiple symposia for these societies on the physics and chemistry of transition-metal compounds. He serves as an editorial board member of the Journal of Physics: Condensed Matter  and npj Computational Materials. Rondinelli is also a member of the MRS Academic Affairs Committee and the Argonne Center for Nanoscale Materials (CNM) Users’ Executive Committee. 
  
  He received a BS degree in MSE from Northwestern University (NU) (2006) and a PhD degree in Materials from the University of California, Santa Barbara (2010). From 2010 to 2011, he was the Joseph Katz Named Fellow in the X-Ray Science Division at Argonne National Laboratory. Prior to joining NU, he was an assistant professor at Drexel University (2011–2014).
  
  
  
  
• Dino Di Carlo, University of California, Los Angeles (2016)
  "For pioneering methods to manufacture, measure, and manipulate microstructured materials and applying these innovations to biomedical problems."
  
  Dino Di Carlo is a professor in the department of bioengineering at UCLA. Over the last eight years, he pioneered using inertial fluid dynamic effects for the control, separation and analysis of cells in microfluidic devices. His work now extends into numerous fields of biomedicine and biotechnology including mechanical cell analysis for rapid diagnostics, next-generation biomaterials and phenotypic drug screening. He also serves as director of the Cancer Nanotechnology Program of the Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center at UCLA and holds a visiting professorship at the University of Tokyo. He co-founded and advises four companies that are commercializing technology developed in his laboratory over the last six years (CytoVale, Vortex Biosciences, Tempo Therapeutics, and Ferrologix). Di Carlo has received numerous honors and awards including the Pioneers of Miniaturization Prize in 2015, Analytical Chemistry Young Innovator Award, the National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER Award, the Office of Naval Research (ONR) Young Investigator Award, the Packard Fellowship, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Young Faculty Award, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director’s New Innovator Award and the Coulter Translational Research Award. He is a Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering and the Royal Society of Chemistry.
  
  
• Timothy J. White, Air Force Research Laboratory (2016)

  "For innovations in the preparation and applications of photo-responsive materials."

  Timothy J. White received his Ph.D. degree in chemical and biochemical engineering in 2006 from the University of Iowa. Subsequently he joined the Air Force Research Laboratory and he currently is a senior research engineer and team leader within the Photonic Materials Branch where he is responsible for an interdisciplinary enterprise composed of basic research, applied research and technology demonstration. His personal research activities currently focus on a range of topics in soft matter mostly relating to polymers, liquid crystals and composites thereof with specific emphasis on stimuli-responsive materials for applications in optics, photonics and other aerospace applications. White actively serves the broader materials research community in leadership activities with the American Chemical Society as well as actively serving the Materials Research Society and the SPIE. He has been honored with the 2012 Air Force Early Career Award, the 2013 American Chemical Society PMSE Division Award for “Cooperative Research in Applied Polymer Science,” and the 2013 SPIE Early Career Achievement Award.

  
  
  
  
• Karena W. Chapman, Argonne National Laboratory (2015)

  "For contributions to understanding the coupled structure and reactivity of energy-relevant systems and for developing the incisive experimental and analytical tools needed to interrogate these complex materials systems"

  Karena W. Chapman is a chemist within the X-ray Science Division at Argonne National Laboratory. In this role she develops and applies advanced synchrotron-based characterization tools to explore the coupled structure and reactivity of energy-relevant materials, including battery electrodes and electrolytes, catalysts and nanoporous framework materials for strategic gas capture. Her research exploits Pair Distribution Function (PDF) analysis of high-energy x-ray scattering data and other complementary methods, to probe the atomic and nanoscale structure of crystalline, nano and amorphous materials that are beyond the limits of conventional crystallography. She leads the dedicated PDF instrument, 11-ID-B, at Argonne National Laboratory's Advanced Photon Source and is co-editor for the Journal of Applied Crystallography. Chapman joined Argonne National Laboratory in 2005 as the Arthur Holly Compton Postdoctoral Scholar, becoming a staff scientist in 2009. She received her BSc and Ph.D. degrees in chemistry from the University of Sydney, Australia.

  
  
• Ali Javey, University of California, Berkeley (2015)

  "For innovative contributions in integrating nanomaterials into device applications"

  Ali Javey received a Ph.D. in chemistry from Stanford University in 2005, and was a junior fellow of the Harvard Society of Fellows from 2005 to 2006. He then joined the faculty of the University of California, Berkeley, where he is currently a professor of electrical engineering and computer sciences. He is also a faculty scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory where he serves as the program leader of Electronic Materials (E-Mat). He is the co-director of Berkeley Sensor and Actuator Center (BSAC), and Bay Area PV Consortium (BAPVC). He is an associate editor of ACS Nano. Professor Javey’s research interests encompass the fields of chemistry, materials science and electrical engineering. His work focuses on the integration of nanoscale electronic materials for various technological applications, including low power electronics, flexible circuits and sensors, and energy generation and harvesting. He is the recipient of MRS Outstanding Young Investigator Award (2015), Nano Letters Young Investigator Lectureship (2014); UC Berkeley Electrical Engineering Outstanding Teaching Award (2012); APEC Science Prize for Innovation, Research and Education (2011); Netexplorateur of the Year Award (2011); IEEE Nanotechnology Early Career Award (2010); Alfred P. Sloan Fellow (2010); Mohr Davidow Ventures Innovators Award (2010); National Academy of Sciences Award for Initiatives in Research (2009); Technology Review TR35 (2009); NSF Early CAREER Award (2008); U.S. Frontiers of Engineering by National Academy of Engineering (2008); and Peter Verhofstadt Fellowship from the Semiconductor Research Corporation (2003).

  
  
• Henry J. Snaith, Oxford University (2014)

  "For innovation and development of solid state dye sensitized solar cells and for his groundbreaking work in perovskite hybrid solar cells"

  Henry J. Snaith is a professor in the physics department of Oxford University. He received his Ph.D. in 2004 from the University of Cambridge, United Kingdom, and undertook his postdoc at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Switzerland. His research has been focused on new materials and device architectures for future generation low-cost photovoltaic. Snaith's achievements include the first demonstration of “gyroid” structured titania for dye solar cells, the first demonstration of mesoporous single crystals of anataze TiO2 and the recent discovery of high efficiency solid-state organometal trihalide perovskite-based thin film and mesosuperstructured solar cells. He was awarded the Patterson Medal of the Institute of Physics in 2012, and named as one of “Natures Ten” people who mattered in 2013. In 2010, he founded Oxford Photovoltaics Ltd., which is commercializing perovskite solar cells for building integrated and utility scale photovoltaic applications.

  
  
• Alexandra Boltasseva, Purdue University (2013)

  "For pioneering research to develop novel materials for advanced plasmonic, metamaterial and transformation optics devices with potential applications in future nanoscale photonic technologies"

  Alexandra Boltasseva is an assistant professor at the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Birck Nanotechnology Center, Purdue University, and an adjunct associate professor at Technical University of Denmark (DTU). She received her Ph.D. in electrical engineering at DTU in 2004.

  Boltasseva specializes in nanophotonics, nanofabrication, plasmonics and metamaterials. She received the IEEE Photonics Society Young Investigator Award, the MIT Technology Review Top Young Innovator (TR35) Award that "honors 35 innovators under 35 each year whose work promises to change the world," the Purdue College of Engineering Early Career Research Award, the Young Researcher Award in Advanced Optical Technologies from the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Germany, and the Young Elite-Researcher Award from the Danish Council for Independent Research. She is topical editor for Optics Letters and the Journal of Optics and guest editor for Advances in OptoElectronics, and is a senior member of the OSA, as well as a member of the IEEE, SPIE and MRS. Boltasseva has co-authored three invited book chapters and 65 research papers in refereed journals. She has an h-index of 22 (ISI Web of Science)/26 (Google Scholar) with a total number of citations above 1600. Boltasseva has been featured as an invited speaker at 59 international conferences and leading research centers. 

  
  
  
  
• Markus J. Buehler, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (2012)
  “For highly innovative and creative work in computational modeling of biological, bio-inspired, and synthetic materials, revealing how weakness is turned into strength through hierarchical material design.” 
  
  Markus J. Buehler is an associate professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, where he directs the Laboratory for Atomistic and Molecular Mechanics (LAMM). He is the co-director of the MIT Computation for Design and Optimization Program, Director of the MIT-Germany Program, and leads the Mechanics and Materials Group in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. Buehler has published more than 175 articles on computational materials science, nanotechnology, and nanoscience; authored two monographs; and has given several hundred invited, keynote, and plenary talks. Buehler received the National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER award, the United States Air Force Young Investigator Award, the Navy Young Investigator Award, and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Young Faculty Award, as well as the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE). He was an invitee and plenary speaker at the National Academy of Engineering Frontiers in Engineering Symposium. He recently received the Harold E. Edgerton Faculty Achievement Award for exceptional distinction in teaching and in research or scholarship, the highest honor bestowed on young MIT faculty. Other major awards include the Thomas J. R. Hughes Young Investigator Award, the Sia Nemat-Nasser Medal, the Rossiter W. Raymond Memorial Award, the Stephen Brunauer Award, the Alfred Noble Prize, and the Leonardo da Vinci Award. Buehler serves as a member of the editorial board of several international publications and is editor-in-chief of BioNanoScience. He is the founding chair of the Biomechanics Committee at the Engineering Mechanics Institute of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), a member of the U. S. National Committee on Biomechanics, and co-chair of the Nanoengineering in Biology in Medicine Steering Committee of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME).
  
  
• Dmitri V. Talapin, University of Chicago (2011)

  “For methodological developments of synthesis and self-assembly of inorganic nanocrystals and for fundamental studies transforming colloidal nanostructures into electronic and optoelectronic materials.”

  Dmitri Talapin is an associate professor in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Chicago. His research interests revolve around colloidal inorganic nanomaterials, spanning synthetic methodology to device fabrication, with the goal of turning colloidal nanostructures into competitive electronic materials. He received his doctorate degree from the University of Hamburg, Germany, in 2002 under the supervision of Horst Weller. In 2003, Talapin joined the IBM Research Division at T. J. Watson Research Center as a postdoctoral fellow to work with Chris Murray on the synthesis and self assembly of semiconductor nanostructures. In 2005, he moved to Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory as a staff scientist at the Molecular Foundry. He joined the faculty at the University of Chicago in 2007. His recent recognitions include the Camille Dreyfus Teacher Scholar Award (2010); David and Lucile Packard Fellowship in Science and Engineering (2009); NSF CAREER Award (2009) and Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship (2009).

  
  
• Mark C. Hersam, Northwestern University (2010)
  “For pioneering research on the physics, chemistry, and engineering of nanoelectronic materials and devices, including solution-phase techniques for sorting carbon nanotubes and graphene, and for organic functionalization and nanopatterning of semiconductor surfaces."
  
  Mark C. Hersam, currently a professor of materials science and engineering and chemistry at Northwestern University, earned a B.S. in electrical engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) in 1996 and a M.Phil. in physics from the University of Cambridge in 1997. In 1999, he received an IBM Distinguished Fellowship to perform research at the IBM T. J. Watson Research Laboratory. He earned his Ph.D. in electrical engineering from UIUC in 2000. In recognition of his early career accomplishments, Hersam was directly promoted from assistant professor to full professor with tenure in 2006.
  
  As a faculty member, Hersam has received numerous awards, including the Beckman Young Investigator Award, NSF CAREER Award, ARO Young Investigator Award, ONR Young Investigator Award, Sloan Research Fellowship, Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, TMS Robert Lansing Hardy Award, AVS Peter Mark Award, SES Research Young Investigator Award, as well as three Teacher of the Year Awards.
  
  His research interests include single-molecule chemistry, nanofabrication, scanning probe microscopy, semiconductor surfaces and carbon nanomaterials. In 2007, Hersam co-founded NanoIntegris, a start-up company focusing on supplying high-performance carbon nanomaterials.
  
  
• Teri Odom, Northwestern University (2009)
  "For the development and characterization of nanoparticles and nanostructured arrays designed to filter and propagate plasmonic excitations with unprecedented control and sensitivity." 
  
  Teri W. Odom is an associate professor and Dow Chemical Company Research Professor at Northwestern University’s Department of Chemistry and Materials Science and Engineering. She received her B.S. from Stanford University (1996) and her Ph.D. from Harvard University (2001). She joined Northwestern in 2002 and was the inaugural recipient of the Dow Teacher-Scholar Award.
  
  Odom has received a Research Innovation Award (Research Corporation, 2002), the Victor K. LaMer Award (ACS Surface Science and Colloids, 2003) and the National Science Foundation's CAREER Award (2004). She was also named as one of MIT Technology Review's Top 100 Innovators in 2004. Odom is a David and Lucile Packard Fellow (2003), an Alfred P. Sloan Fellow (2005) and a Cottrell Scholar of Research Corporation (2005). In 2006, she was awarded the ExxonMobil Solid State Chemistry Faculty Fellowship, and in 2007, the Rohm and Haas New Faculty Award. Most recently, she was a recipient of the NIH Director’s Pioneer Award (2008) and the ACS National Fresenius Award (2009).
  
  Odom's research focuses on controlling materials at the 100-nm scale and investigating their size and shape-dependent properties. Specifically, she has developed multiscale nanoscale patterning tools that can generate new types of noble metal (plasmonic) structures able to manipulate light at the nanoscale. She has pioneered a new area called chemical nanofabrication, which combines chemistry and fabrication to assemble functional nanomaterials.
  
  
• Michael S. Strano, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (2008)

  “For innovative work on single walled carbon nanotube chemical modifications, both fundamental and applied, and for pioneering a new class of near infrared sensor architectures based upon chemically induced optical modulation of carbon nanotubes.”
  
  Michael S. Strano is currently the Charles and Hilda Roddey Associate Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Chemical Engineering Department. He received his B.S. from Polytechnic University in Brooklyn, New York, and his Ph.D. from the University of Delaware, both in chemical engineering. He was a postdoctoral research fellow under the guidance of Nobel Laureate Richard E. Smalley at Rice University departments of chemistry and physics. From 2003 to 2007, Strano was an assistant professor in the department of chemical and biomolecular engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His research focuses on biomolecule/nanoparticle interactions and the surface chemistry of low-dimensional systems, nano-electronics, nanoparticle separations and applications of vibrational spectroscopy to nanotechnology.

  Strano is the recipient of numerous awards for his work, including a 2005 Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, a 2006 Beckman Young Investigator Award, the 2006 Coblentz Award for Molecular Spectroscopy and the Unilever Award from the American Chemical Society in 2007 for excellence in colloidal science.

  
  
• Michael D. McGehee, Stanford University (2007)

  “For innovation and application of organic semiconductors in lasers, light-emitting diodes, transistors and solar cells.” 
  
  Michael McGehee graduated from Princeton University with a degree in physics (1994) after researching mesostructure self assembly with Sol Gruner and Ilhan Aksay. He received a Ph.D. (1999) from the University of California, Santa Barbara, for his research with Alan Heeger on the use of semiconducting conjugated polymers as materials for lasers and light-emitting diodes. After graduating, he studied the co-assembly of block-copolymer/metal-oxide nanostructures in the research groups of Galen Stucky and Brad Chmelka. In the spring of 2000, he joined the faculty of Stanford University’s Materials Science and Engineering Department. McGehee won the MRS Graduate Student Gold Medal Award (1999), a Dupont Young Professor Award (2001) and an NSF CAREER Award (2001). He was a Gilbreth Lecturer at the National Academy of Engineering's 2006 Annual Meeting.
  
  At Stanford, McGehee has led a group of students who make ordered organic-inorganic bulk heterojunction solar cells, studying the electronic processes that occur in them. His group also studied the effects of molecular packing on charge transport in polymer field-effect transistors and developed methods for improving light extraction from polymer light-emitting diodes. He teaches classes on nanotechnology, polymer science, organic electronics and solar cells.

  
  
• Ju Li, The Ohio State University (2006)

  “For innovative work on the atomistic and first-principles modeling of nanoindentation and ideal strength in revealing the genesis of materials deformation and fracture.” 
  
  Ju Li received his B.S. from the University of Science and Technology of China (1994) and a Ph.D. in nuclear engineering from MIT (2000), advised by Sidney Yip. He then became a postdoctoral associate (2000-2002) and research scientist (2002) working with Sidney Yip and Subra Suresh. He joined Ohio State University’s Department of Materials Science and Engineering as assistant professor in 2002. He has been a visiting scientist at Honda R&D Co. Ltd. in Japan and at Ames Laboratory in Iowa.

  Li has made theoretical and computational contributions in solid mechanics, electronic and thermal transport, multiscale methodology development and biomechanics. His current research focuses on developing robust analytical and computational approaches to modeling structural and functional properties of materials, including Ni- and Ti-based superalloys, fuel cell catalysts, ultra high-temperature ceramics, hydrogen storage materials, electroactive polymers and metallic glasses. He received an MRS Graduate Student Silver Medal in 1998 and an Outstanding Paper Award in the Fifth International Conference on Advanced Materials in 1999.

  
  
• Harold Y. Hwang, University of Tokyo (2005)

  “For innovative work on the materials physics of transition metal oxides and the atomic-scale synthesis of complex oxide heterostructures.” 
  
  Harold Y. Hwang received a B.S. in physics, a B.S. and M.S. in electrical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1993) and a Ph.D. in physics from Princeton University (1997). In 1996, he joined Bell Laboratories, Lucent Technologies, as a member of the technical staff in the Materials Physics Research Department. He joined the University of Tokyo in 2003 as an associate professor in the Departments of Advanced Materials Science and Applied Physics. Hwang has been active in the study of charge transport, spin and lattice dynamics, and ordering transitions in transition metal oxides, as well as in the development of chalcogenide glass waveguides and claddings for photonics applications. His current research interests are on the atomic-scale synthesis of thin-film complex oxide heterostructures, focusing on the control of the electronic structure at interfaces and in confined geometries. Hwang has received a Sakigake Fellowship from the Japan Science and Technology Agency (2003) and a Mitsubishi Foundation Award (2004).

  
  
• Peidong Yang, University of California, Berkely (2004)

  "For innovative synthesis of a broad range of nanowire and nanowire heterostructure materials, and the discovery of optically-induced lasing in individual nanowire devices." 
  
  Peidong Yang received his B.S. in chemistry from the University of Science and Technology of China (1993) and a Ph.D. in chemistry (1997) from Harvard University, where he worked with Charles Lieber. He then did postdoctoral research in the area of mesoporous materials with Galen Stucky at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Yang joined the chemistry department faculty at the University of California, Berkeley, in 1999, and currently holds the Chevron Texaco Assistant Professorship in that department.
  
  His current research interests in nanowire synthesis and higher-order nanostructure assembly; their optoelectronic properties and energy-conversion applications have earned him young investigator awards from the National Science Foundation, The Arnold and Mabel Beckman Foundation, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and the Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation.
  
  He was named one of the MIT Technology Review TR 100 top innovators and has received the Exxon Mobil Solid State Chemistry fellowship, the 3M untenured faculty award, the Hellman Award and the Research Innovation Award. He is the chair of the Nanoscience Subdivision of the American Chemical Society.

  
  
• Timothy J. Deming, University of California, Santa Barbara (2003)

  "For his discovery of synthetic methods to produce polypeptide homopolymers and block copolymers with exquisite control of block length, sequence and secondary structure and the interdisciplinary exploitation of these materials to yield unique hydrogels and inorganic materials." 
  
  Timothy J. Deming received his B.S. in chemistry from the University of California, Irvine, in 1989, and graduated with a Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of California, Berkeley, under Bruce Novak in 1993. After a NIH postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, with David Tirrell, he joined the materials department faculty at the University of California, Santa Barbara, in 1995. He currently holds a joint appointment in the materials and chemistry departments where he was promoted to associate professor in 1999. Current research interests include polypeptide synthesis, self-assembly of block copolypeptides and biological activity of polypeptides, for which he has received young investigator awards from the National Science Foundation, the Office of Naval Research, The Arnold and Mabel Beckman Foundation, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and the Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation.

  
  
• Kristi S. Anseth, University of Colorado (2001)
  "For innovative work in polymeric biomaterials for drug delivery, bone and cartilage repair, and tissue engineering, and for outstanding leadership potential in this interdisciplinary field of materials research."
  
  Kristi S. Anseth received her bachelor's degree from Purdue University in 1992 and her Ph.D. in 1994 from the University of Colorado, both in chemical engineering. Her Ph.D. thesis received the American Chemical Society's Unilever Award for the most outstanding graduate thesis in the polymer science area. Upon completion of her Ph.D., Anseth was a National Institiute of Health (NIH) Postdoctoral Fellow at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and subsequently accepted a faculty position at the University of Colorado in 1996. Anseth is presently a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Assistant Investigator and the Patten Associate Professor of Chemical Engineering at the University of Colorado.
  
  Her research interests involve the application of photopolymerization technology to the development of degradable polymers for medical and biological applications. Since joining the faculty at CU, her research program has been recognized and awarded a National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER Award, NIH FIRST Award, a Packard Foundation Fellowship and a DuPont Young Professor Grant. She is the first engineer to be named a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Assistant Investigator and was recognized by the Technology Review as one of the TR100 innovators under 35 who will drive the future of technology.
  
  Anseth, a dedicated teacher, has received the Department's Outstanding Graduate Teaching Award (1997), the College of Engineering's Peebles Teaching Innovation Award (1998), the ASEE Dow Outstanding New Faculty Award (Rocky Mountain Section, 1999), a Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award (2000) and the Boulder Faculty Assembly Teaching Excellence Award (2000).
  
  
• Frances M. Ross, IBM T.J. Watson Research Center (2000)
  "For innovative and powerful experimental studies, based upon development of novel in-situ electron microscopy techniques, that have provided fundamental new understanding of nucleation, growth, oxidation and etching processes in a wide range of materials systems."
  
  Frances Ross is a research staff member at the IBM T.J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, New York. She received her Ph.D. on transmission electron microscopy of silicon oxides from Cambridge University and then worked for two years as a postdoctoral Fellow at AT&T Bell Laboratories in Murray Hill, New Jersey. During this time she carried out in situ electron microscopy experiments on silicon oxidation and dislocation motion in electronic devices. She then spent four years as a staff scientist at the National Center for Electron Microscopy at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, supervising the operation of the Berkeley Atomic Resolution Microscope and the In-Situ Microscope and developing specimen holders for dynamic experiments on electrochemical etching of silicon and domain motion in ferroelectric materials. She moved to IBM in 1997 and has recently been studying epitaxial growth processes of semiconductors and silicides by making real-time observations in the microscope. Ross' interests include the application of in situ electron microscopy to understanding reaction mechanisms, in particular semiconductor growth, surface reactions, and electrochemistry, as well as applied aero- and hydrodynamics. She has organized MRS symposia on materials in sports and recreation and electron microscopy of semiconducting materials.
  
  
  
• Chad A. Mirkin, Northwestern University (1999)
  "Pioneering and leadership role in developing a new interdisciplinary field in which complex biological macromolecules are used to assemble inorganic nanoparticle building blocks into functional meso- and macroscopic structures." 
  
  Chad A. Mirkin received his undergraduate training at Dickinson College (B.S., 1986) and his graduate training at The Pennsylvania State University, where he completed his Ph.D. in chemistry in 1989. That same year, he moved to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology as a National Science Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow. Mirkin joined the faculty at Northwestern University in 1991 as assistant professor of chemistry and in 1995, he was promoted to associate professor. In 1997, at the age of 33, he became Charles E. and Emma H. Morrison Professor of Chemistry.
  
  Mirkin has a multidisciplinary research program that focuses on problems at the interfaces of organometallic chemistry, surface chemistry, and electrochemistry. His research has centered on two main topics: 1) the rational design of hybrid materials for electrochemically controlling transition metal stoichiometric and catalytic reactivity, and 2) surface coordination chemistry and design. Mirkin's contributions in the first area have provided an understanding of the important fundamental considerations necessary to control the coordination environments of transition metal centers through appropriate polymeric ligand design and a triggered outer or inner sphere electron transfer event. His contributions in the second area have increased our understanding of the relationship between two-dimensional film structure and function as it pertains to electron transfer and photoreactivity. In the general area of surface design, Mirkin has pioneered the surface modification chemistry of high-temperature superconductors. He also has identified and developed a new interdisciplinary field that focuses on using complex biomolecules to assemble nanoscale inorganic building blocks into functional meso- and macroscopic structures.
  
  Mirkin has won numerous awards for his research, including the ACS Award in Pure Chemistry, the E. Bright Wilson Prize, the Phi Lambda Upsilon Fresenious Award, a Beckman Young Investigator Award, an NSF Young Investigator Award, an A.P. Sloan Foundation Fellowship, an ONR Young Investigator Award, a DuPont New Professor Award and a Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award. In 1997, he was co-recipient of a prestigious B.F. Goodrich Collegiate Inventors Award for one of the three most outstanding collegiate inventions in all of medicine, science and engineering.
  
  Mirkin is the author or co-author of over 70 publications and six patents and is an active consultant with several major chemical companies.
  
  
• Anne M. Mayes, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1998)
  "For incisive theoretical and experimental investigations of macromolecules at and near surfaces and interfaces leading to tailorable surface properties, especially novel biocompatible substrates." 
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Christopher N. Bowman, University of Colorado (1997)
  "For seminal contributions to the field of highly crosslinked polymers, information storage materials and computational methods in polymerization engineering." 
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Antonios G. Mikos, Rice University (1996)
  "For the synthesis and processing of new biomaterials for tissue engineering, supports for cells, tissue-growth conduits, targeted cell-adhesion substrates, and cellular-response stimulants." 
  
  Mikos joined Rice University as the T.N. Law Assistant Professor of Chemical Engineering and Bioengineering in the Department of Chemical Engineering and The Institute of Biosciences and Bioengineering at Rice in January 1992. At Rice University, he has been a crucial part of the development of a new graduate degree program in bioengineering/biomaterials.
  
  He has edited four books and published nearly 40 technical papers with another dozen submitted or in press in journals such as the Journal of Chemical Physics, Polymers, and journal of Colloid and Interface Science. He is editor of Tissue Engineering and is involved with several other publications and professional societies.
  
  
• A. Paul Alivisatos, University of California, Berkeley (1995)
  "Leadership in materials research, notably in the field of nanocrystals."
  
  At the 1995 MRS Spring Meeting, Alivisatos delivered an awards talk entitled "Symmetry Effects in Semiconductor Nanocrystals."
   
  His most significant scientific contributions relate to phase transitions in nanocrystals, nanocrystalline surface characterization, optical properties of nanocrystals, and incorporation of nanocrystals into light emitting diodes.
  Alivisatos received a Bachelor's degree in chemistry in 1981 from the University of Chicago. He attended the University of California—Berkeley, where he earned his PhD degree with Charles Harris, profes- sor of chemistry, based on the photo- physics of electronically excited molecules near metal and semiconductor surfaces.  
   
  In 1986 he joined AT&T Bell Laboratories in a postdoctoral position, where he was instrumental in setting up a collaborative research effort with Louis Brus and Michael Steigerwald. From this work new synthetic techniques involving arrested precipitation were developed to allow the production of CdS and CdSe nanocrystals with a narrow size distribution, within a variance of only a few percent.  
   
  In 1988, he joined the faculty of the University of California—Berkeley as an assistant professor of chemistry and was promoted to associate professor in 1992. In 1994 he obtained the position of full professor.
  
  
  
• David J. Eaglesham, AT&T Bell Laboratories (1994)

  Creativity, leadership and experimental ingenuity in discovering an understanding of fundamental interface, surface and defect phenomena in semiconductor crystal growth."

  David J. Eaglesham is the 1994 recipient of the Materials Research Society's Outstanding Young Investigator Award. The Outstanding Young Investigator Award recognizes exceptional, interdisciplinary scientific work in materials research by a young scientist or engineer who also shows excellent promise as a developing leader in the materials area. A member of the technical staff at AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill, New Jersey, Eaglesham is cited "for remark- able creativity, leadership, and experimental ingenuity in the discovery and understanding of fundamental interface, surface, and defect phenomena in semiconductor crystal growth."
   
  At age 32, Eaglesham has already demonstrated his potential as a researcher at AT&T and a tenured professor at the University of Liverpool, and through graduate student research at the University of Bristol. He has well over 100 publications to his name.
   
  He has gained rapid recognition and respect for innovative work combining transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) to understand low-temperature silicon epitaxy and other phenomena involving surface energies and crystal growth. He opened up new dimensions in epitaxy and initiated a field of fundamental crystal growth studies around the world.
   
  Eaglesham earned his BSc degree in chemical physics in 1982 and his PhD degree in 1985 in physics at the University of Bristol. His PhD research centered on the study of charge-density-wave phase transitions. These seminal studies demonstrated Eaglesham's out- standing experimental skills in developing TEM techniques for convergent beam diffraction analysis of structures and also in developing novel dark-field imaging and high-resolution studies.
   
  As a lecturer in the Department of Materials Science at the University of Liverpool, his research shifted toward electronic and superconducting materials. He made the first identification of a dislocation source in strained semiconductors, the 1/4[111] defect.
   
  In 1988, he joined AT&T Bell Laboratories, where he combined his electron microscopy skills with the investigation of epitaxial growth by MBE. He discovered the regime of silicon low-temperature epitaxy, and demonstrated that the defining parameter is epitaxial thickness, not temperature. He elucidated the link between epitaxy and growth conditions such as strain, roughness, and back- ground contamination. Low-temperature growth permits electrical doping with concentration and dimensional constraints, which are important for new device technologies.
   
  He has also done general investigations of semiconductor growth and morphology. He showed that the classic Stranski-Krastanov growth mode (layered growth then relaxed islands) involves a transition regime of strained islands which can be related to the elastic relaxation of strained islands.

  
  
• Charles M. Lieber, Harvard University (1993)

  "Pioneering contributions to the understanding of novel materials, through synthesis and elegant determination of complex local structure and electronic properties."

  Lieber earned his BA degree in chemistry from Franklin and Marshall College in 1981. In 1985, he received his PhD degree in chemistry from Stanford University, having done research on photo- electrochemistry. He performed postdoctoral research on photoinduced electron transfer reactions at the California Institute of Technology until 1987, when he joined Columbia University as assistant professor of chemistry. He became an associate professor in 1990. At Columbia, Lieber created a new field of structural inorganic chemistry which combines solid-state synthesis and scanning tunneling microscopy (STM). In 1991, he became a full professor of chemistry at Harvard University.

  Lieber has more than 60 publications to his name. Among his awards are the 1992 American Chemical Society Pure Chemistry Award, the 1992 Kinkewalter Prize, and a Presidential Young Investigator Award for the years 1988-1993. Lieber is a member of the American Chemical Society, the American Physics Society, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the Materials Research Society.

   

  
  
• David D. Awschalom, University of California, Santa Barbara (1992)

  "Recognizing enterprise in the field of nanostructured materials."

  Awschalom holds PhD and MSc degrees in physics from Cornell University and a BSc in physics from the University of Illinois-Urbana. Prior to joining the University of California, Awschalom held positions at the IBM T.J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, New York.

  
  
  
  
  
  
• Stuart S. P. Parkin, IBM Almaden Research Center (1991)
  "Recognizing enterprise in new materials, high Tc superconductors, and magnetic multilayers displaying oscillatory exchange coupling."