Randeria Elected 2022 AAAS Fellow

Congratulations to Prof. Mohit Randeria, IRG-1, on being elected a AAAS 2022 Fellow! In October 2022, the AAAS Council elected 505 members as Fellows of AAAS. Election as a Fellow honors members whose efforts on behalf of the advancement of science or its applications in service to society have distinguished them among their peers and colleagues.

See the announcement here.

2022 OSU Materials Research Seed Grant Program Request for Proposals

We are pleased to announce the 2022-2023 Materials Research Seed Grant Program Request for Proposals (RFP). This enhanced seed program leverages resources and best practices of the Center for Emergent Materials (CEM), an NSF MRSEC; the Center for Exploration of Novel Complex Materials (ENCOMM); and the Institute for Materials Research (IMR).

The three funding tiers of the OSU Materials Research Seed Grant Program offered are:

Proto-IRG Grants
Proto-IRG Grants provide funds up to $100,000/year per award in direct costs, require one Principal Investigator (PI) and two Co-Principal Investigators (Co-PIs), and may have unfunded collaborators with the goal of forming new Interdisciplinary Research Groups (IRGs) within the CEM, a National Science Foundation (NSF) supported Materials Research Science and Engineering Center (MRSEC).  These proposals should fall within the program scope of the Division of Materials Research at the NSF.  We invite proposers to communicate with CEM representatives (https://cem.osu.edu/) to identify competitive topics.

Multidisciplinary Team Building Grants
MTBGs provide funds up to $70,000/year per award in direct costs, and require one PI and one Co-PI, and may have unfunded collaborators, with the goal of forming multidisciplinary materials research teams that can compete effectively for federal block-funding opportunities, such as the NSF MRSEC program.

Exploratory Materials Research Grants
EMRGs provide funds up to $50,000/year per award in direct costs, and require one PI, and may have Co-PIs and/or unfunded collaborators, with the goal of enabling nascent and innovative materials research to emerge to the point of being competitive for external funding.  EMRGs, while open to all faculty, emphasizes support of pre-tenure faculty members.

Key Dates:

  • Request for Proposals Issued: Monday, October 24, 2022
  • MRSGP Virtual Open House: Wednesday, November 16, 2022 at 4:00 PM ET
  • Letters of Intent Due: Monday, January 9, 2023 at 5:00 PM ET
  • Notice of MRSGP Appropriateness: Monday, January 16, 2023
  • Proto-IRG and Multidisciplinary Team Building Grants tiers only – Mandatory Team Proposal Presentations: Wednesday, January 25, February 1, and February 8, 2023
    • 4:00-5:00 PM, Physics Research Building, Room 4138
  • Proposals Due (All Funding Tiers): Monday, March 6, 2023 at 5:00 PM ET
  • Awards Announced (anticipated): Friday, August 26, 2023
  • Funded Projects Start Date (anticipated): Friday, September 1, 2023 (12-month project period)

Have a question? Please contact IMR Proposal Development Specialist Joanna Gardner, at gardner.306@osu.edu , or visit our MRSGP webpage.

 

DOD SMART Scholarship Awarded to Brandi Wooten

Congratulations to CEM graduate researcher Brandi Wooten for winning a SMART (Science, Mathematics and Research for Transformation) Scholarship from the Department of Defense.

Brandi will be assigned to the Army Research Lab (ARL) – Sensors and Electronic Devices Directorate (SEDD) in Adelphi, MD. She will spend her summers there (beginning in 2022) until she graduates. Afterwards, she will will work there for as many years as they fund her (~2 years).  They make materials atom by atom (a process known as molecular beam epitaxy), then they ship the samples to her where she measures the topological electronic and magnetic properties. Through the scholarship program, she will develop both skillsets, which will be great for future employment opportunities.

Professors Hereman and Trivedi Author Groundbreaking Study

Researchers have discovered a new electronic property at the frontier between the thermal and quantum sciences in a specially engineered metal alloy – and in the process identified a promising material for future devices that could turn heat on and off with the application of a magnetic “switch.”

“Solid-state heat switches without moving parts are extremely desirable, but they don’t exist,” Heremans said. “This is one of the possible mechanisms that would lead to one.”

In physics, an anomaly – the electrons’ generation and absorption of heat discovered in this study – refers to certain symmetries that are present in the classical world but are broken in the quantum world, said study co-author Nandini Trivedi, professor of physics at Ohio State.

The research was published June 7, 2021 in the journal Nature Materials.

Read more here.