The Center for Emergent Materials engages researchers from multiple disciplines to work in teams on scientific problems too complex for a single researcher to solve. The CEM, established in 2008, is located at The Ohio State University and funded by a National Science Foundation MRSEC award.
2026-2032 CALL FOR IRG PROPOSALS
The CEM is requesting proposals for Interdisciplinary Research Groups (IRGs) to participate in the MRSEC recompetition process. The CEM has just completed four years of its third six-year term and is soliciting proposals from collaborative teams to form these new IRGs. Successful proposals will be part of the CEM white paper, due to NSF in June 2025.
Full-scale IRGs will have 7-12 faculty members. Proposals will be reviewed according to the same criteria used to select NSF MRSECs. The MRSEC program seeks compelling collaborations assembled for the express purpose of performing the proposed cutting-edge research, which must be of a scale and complexity that requires a center environment. The MRSEC program is the flagship funding mechanism of the Division of Materials Research (DMR), and the research program must fall within their purview; insight into the range of topics can gained at MRSEC.org
Key Dates
- 1st IRG Team-building Poster Session: September 30th, 4-6pm, PRB 4138.
- open both to existing small teams and researchers interested in joining
- 2nd IRG Team-building Poster Session: November 1st, 2-4pm, PRB 4138.
- open both to existing small teams and researchers interested in joining
- Letter of Intent (LOI) due Monday, December 16th, 2024
- Proposal due noon Tuesday, January 21st, 2025
Read the full solicitation and requirements here.
NEWS
CEM and CSULB Awarded NSF PREM Funding
The Center for Emergent Materials and California State University, Long Beach (CSULB) will embark together on a program to expand participation and access to materials science facilities, education, training and careers. Funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), Partnerships for Research and Education in Materials (PREM) awards are intended to broaden access to skills and opportunities by supporting strategic partnerships between minority-serving institutions and NSF-funded research centers at research-intensive institutions.
The $4.2 million PREM award leverages CSULB’s status as an urban Hispanic-serving institution to build educational pathways at the undergraduate and graduate levels, including post-bachelors bridge programming into technology careers and a research-based Master of Sciences degree. The program’s research is focused on exploring applications in magnetic storage, energy-efficient devices and bio-inspired materials.
Feature
CEM’s Professor Brian Skinner was recently highlighted in Quanta Magazine within the article, “Physicists Observe ‘Unobservable’ Quantum Phase Transition” as one of the physicists who first identified the phenomenon.
Check out the article here
Research
Faculty Research Initiative Video Series: Nandini Trivedi
How is a collection of electrons like a society? Nandini Trivedi, professor of physics in the CEM, says in both cases, individuals act differently in a group than they do alone. She studies these interactions in electrons, with an eye to their beneficial practical applications, such as the dissipationless transmission of electricity through superconductivity.
Watch her research video here.