Seed Funding Program

The CEM runs a dynamic Seed Funding initiative that extends beyond its Interdisciplinary Research Groups (IRGs). This program rapidly supports emerging materials research opportunities and helps develop promising researchers in the field.

Since 2010, the CEM has partnered with two other Ohio State organizations - the Center for Exploration of Novel Complex Materials (ENCOMM) and the Institute for Materials Research (IMR) - to operate the Ohio State Materials Research Seed Grant Program. This collaborative initiative welcomes proposals from all materials researchers across The Ohio State University.

For 2024, the CEM Seed competition will focus specifically on selecting new IRGs. You can find detailed information, including the call for proposals and submission requirements, at the link below.

2026-2032 call for IRG proposals

Previous Seed Award Recipients

2021 Strategic Interest grants

Xiaoxue Wang, Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, “Analog Tuning, Ultra Low Energy Consuming, Non-volatile Organic Memristive Devices Based on Chemical Vapor Deposition Polymers for Neuromorphic Computing.”
Alok Sutradhar, Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, “Coupled Mechanical and Electromagnetic Topology Optimized Design of Photonics Components.”
Jinghua Li, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, “Investigating Charge Transport Behavior and Electrical Coupling Effect in Si Thin-Film Electronics with ssDNA Interfaces during Biosensing.”
Shiyu Zhang, Department of Chemistry, “Sustainable Organic Electrode Materials.”

2022 Strategic Interest grants

Jinghua Li, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, “Optical-electrical coupling behavior in semiconductor nanomembranes.:
Hannah Shafaat, Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry, “Vanadium-substituted proteins as molecular qubits.”
Jeanie Lau, Department of Physics, with Roberto Myers and Wolfgang Windl, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, “In situ Electrical Control of Band Gaps of 2D Semiconductors.“
Yiying Wu with Robert Baker, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, and Wolfgang Windl, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, “Designing Chiral Halide Perovskites for Chirality-Induced Spin Selectivity.“

2023 Strategic Interest grants

Jinwoo Hwang, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, with Yuan-Ming Lu and Jyoti Katoch (Carngie Mellon), Department of Physics, “Topological States Beyond Crystaline Materials.”
Jeanie Lau, Department of Physics, with Roberto Myers and Wolfgang Windl, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, “In situ Control of Band Gaps & Intersubband Transition of 2D Semiconductors.”

2024 Strategic Interest grants

Targeted area: PROTO-IRGs

Carlos Castro, Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, with Ralf Bundschuh and Michael Poirier, Department of Physics, “Transducing conformational dynamics across scales”
Salva Salmani-Rezaie, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, with Kaveh Ahadi, and Jeanie Lau and Nandini Trivedi, Department of Physics. “Superconductivity at the Nexus of Magnetism and Ferroelectricity for Quantum Applications”

2015 Strategic Interest grants

Maryam Ghazisaeidi, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, “First-principles study of dislocation core structures and properties in multi-principal-element alloys”
Jinwoo Hwang, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, “Direct Imaging of Atomic Scale Electromagnetic Fields in Functional Materials”
Hannah Shafaat, Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry, “Developing electrodes for hydrogen production based on robust biological catalysts”

2016 Strategic Interest grants

Jinwoo Hwang, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, “Direct Structural Determination of Individual DNA Molecules Using Electron Nanodiffraction”
Sandip Mazumder, Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, “An Integrated Experimental-Computational Approach for Determining the Phonon Mean Free Path Spectrum in Semiconductors”
Psaras McGrier, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, “Synthesis and Design of Novel Graphyne and Graphdiyne-Based Metal-Organic Frameworks”
Stephen Niezgoda, Department of Materials Science and Engineering,”Uncertainty Quantification for Model Selection: Evaluating Material Constitutive Models based on Available Data”
Patrick Woodward, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, “Halide Double Perovskites: A New Class of Lead-free Compound Semiconductors”

2017 Strategic Interest grants

Target area: PROTO-IRGs.

Jinwoo Hwang, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, “Structure, Defects, and Emergent Properties at Magnetic Oxide Interfaces.”
Mohit Randeria, Department of Physics, “Spin Textures in Chiral Magnetic Materials.”

2018 Strategic Interest grants

Target area: PROTO-IRGs.

Jinwoo Hwang, Department of Materials Science and Engineering,”Structure, Defects and Emergent Properties at Magnetic Interfaces”
Sanjay Krishna, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, “Metamorphic Narrow Gap Antimonide Materials for Topological Insulators”
Jeanie Lau, Department of Physics, “Tunable Ferromagnetic and Antiferromagnetic Spintronics Based on Graphene Quantum Hall States”
Yiying Wu, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, “Anionic Functional Materials”

2008 Strategic Interest grants

Targeted area: BIOMATERIALS

Gunjan Agarwal, Department of Biomedical Engineering, “Magnetic Force Microscopy of Magnetic Nanoparticles in Biological Systems”
Michael Poirier, Department of Physics, “Heterogeneous Magnetic Particles for Force and Torque Sensing: A New Approach for Single Molecule Biology”
Yi Zhao, Department of Biomedical Engineering, “Microstructured Polymer Nanofibers for Skeletal Muscle Restoration”
Roberto Myers, Department of Materials Science & Engineering, “Rare-earth (Gd) Doped Wide Bandgap Semiconductors for Magnetoelectronics”

2009 Strategic Interest grants

Targeted area: HYBRID MATERIALS.

Roberto Myers, Department of Materials Science & Engineering, “Towards Room Temperature Spin-Injection/Detection in Wide Band Gap Semiconductors”
Jessica Winter, Department of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering, and Co-PI R. Sooryakumar, Department of Physics, “Multifunctional Hybrid Nanomaterials: Synthesis and Manipulation”
Renewal of Yi Zhao, Department of Biomedical Engineering, “Microstructured Polymer Nanofibers for Skeletal Muscle Restoration”
Renewal of Michael Poirier, Department of Physics, “Heterogeneous Magnetic Particles for Force and Torque Sensing: A New Approach for Single Molecule Biology”

2010 Strategic Interest grants

Targeted area: PROTO-IRGs.

Roberto Myers, Department of Materials Science & Engineering, “Thermal Spintronics: Engineering Spin Currents and Dissipation”
Michael Poirier, Department of Physics, “Magnetic Resonance Studies of Chromatin Structure and Dynamics”

2011 Strategic Interest grants

Roberto Myers, Department of Materials Science & Engineering, “Thermal Spintronics: Engineering Spin Currents and Dissipation”
Michael Paulaitis, Department of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering, “Characterization & Synthesis of Mimetic Cell-Secreted Exosomes for Cell Signaling”
Michael Poirier, Department of Physics, “Magnetic Resonance Studies of Chromatin Dynamics and Function”

2012 Strategic Interest grants

Roberto Myers, Department of Materials Science & Engineering, “Thermal spintronics: materials for enhanced heat-spin interactions”
Michael Poirier, Department of Physics, “Functional dynamics of DNA scaffolded materials”
Josh Goldberger, Department of Chemistry, “Band structure engineering on Si/Ge/Sn graphene analogues”

2014 Strategic Interest grants

Anne Co, Department of Chemistry, “In-situ Solid-State NMR for Battery Studies”
Soheil Soghrati, Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, “Advanced Finite Element Approach for the Virtual Design of Functionally Graded Al/Al2O3 Reinforced Composites”
R. Sooryakumar, Department of Physics, “Fabrication of Patterned Protein Molecules Using Living Magnetic Microbes”
Jessica Winter, Department of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering, Department of Biomolecular Engineering, “Novel Technologies for Constructing Hybrid 1D-2D Interfaces”