About Us

Photo Provided By Geoff Hulse

The Center for Emergent Materials, located at The Ohio State University, is one of a network of Materials Research Science and Engineering Centers (MRSEC) funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF). The MRSEC program funds teams of researchers from several disciplines who work collaboratively on materials research in order to address fundamental problems in science and engineering. By working in teams, called Interdisciplinary Research Groups (IRG), the researchers at CEM tackle scientific problems that are too large and complex for a scientist working alone to solve. There are two IRGs at the Center for Emergent Materials focused on researching the quantum mechanical phenomenon called “spin” in order to understand and engineer functional nanostructures.

CEM was founded in September 2008 and involves about 85 personnel consisting of senior and junior faculty, post doctoral researchers, graduate and undergraduate students, research staff, and administrative staff. The two teams, called IRGs, which are the heart of  CEM’s research activities, are:

  • IRG-1: Towards Spin-Preserving, Heterogeneous Spin Networks
  • IRG-2: Double Perovskite Interfaces and Heterostructures
In addition to the research conducted within the IRGs, CEM supports the development of new research teams through the cooperative OSU Materials Research Seed Grant Program. Some very promising research, including work on thermal spin phenomena, has been funded by the Seed Funding Program. The CEM also has active research collaborations with many partners (universities, government laboratories, industry), both in the US and abroad.

The mission of widening the Science-Technology-Engineering-Math (STEM) “pipeline” and enhancing diversity in STEM is integrated into all of CEM’s research activities. The overall goal of the enhanced classroom education program is to identify, study, and document a variety of misconceptions relevant to materials education and to develop and test curricula to address those misconceptions. The programs will work with instructors teaching introductory/undergraduate courses with materials science content, as well as contribute to the development of a high school materials science course curriculum. To fully engage students, especially those from underrepresented groups, a Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) program will be established at the college level and additional research activities will target students at the high school level. CEM will also expose middle and high school students to the excitement and relevance of materials science through a series of workshops that increase their awareness of careers in materials science.

Executive Committee

  • Jay A. Gupta, Assistant Professor, Department of Physics (IRG-1 Co-Leader)
  • P. Chris Hammel, Professor and Ohio Eminent Scholar, Department of Physics (Director)
  • Andrew Heckler, Associate Professor, Department of Physics (Education and Outreach Leader)
  • Ezekiel Johnston-Halperin, Assistant Professor, Department of Physics (IRG-1 Co-Leader)
  • Steven A. Ringel, Neal A. Smith Endowed Chair and Professor, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (Facilities Leader)
  • Nandini Trivedi, Professor, Department of Physics (Theory/Modeling Cluster Leader)
  • Patrick M. Woodward, Professor, Department of Chemistry, (Associate Director, IRG-2 Co-Leader)
  • Fengyuan Yang, Associate Professor, Department of Physics (IRG-2 Co-Leader, IMRA Leader)

External Advisory Board

  • Prof. David Awschalom, Director of the California NanoSystems Institute, Department of Physics, University of California, Santa Barbara
  • Prof. Robert Buhrman, Senior Vice Provost for Research, Cornell University
  • Prof. Melissa Hines, Director of Cornell Center for Materials Research, Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, Cornell University
  • Prof. Allan MacDonald, Department of Physics, University of Texas, Austin
  • Dr. Duncan McBranch, Deputy Principal Associate Director, Los Alamos National Laboratory
  • Prof. Joe Orenstein, Department of Physics, University of California, Berkeley
  • Prof. Chris Palmstrom, Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering, University of California, Santa Barbara
  • Prof. Ramamoorthy Ramesh, Department of Materials Science & Engineering, University of California, Berkeley
  • Dr. Arfaan Rampersaud, President, Columbus Nanoworks
  • Prof. Andrew Rappe, Department of Chemistry, University of Pennsylvania
  • Dr. Nick Rizzo, Distinguished Member of Technical Staff, Everspin Technologies
  • Dr. Bruce Terris, Hitachi Global Storage Technologies