UConn MSE e-Bulletin 2021

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CONTENTS

Sara Pedram Researches Alternative Energy Sources

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Professor Dongare Discusses Developments as part of ‘CREDDS’ and the UTC Professorship

Undergraduate Robert Williams Seeks to Reduce COVID-19 Transmission through Research on Air Filtration Systems

03 | RESEARCH 09 | DEPARTMENT NEWS 13 | UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS

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15 | SENIOR DESIGN DAY 19 | GRADUATE STUDENTS 23 | ALUMNI

Alumna Tulsi Patel Serves U.S. Air Force as NRC Research Associate

8 Professor Jankovic Receives the Prestigious NSF CAREER Award

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20 Ummay Habiba Contributes to Innovation in the Aircraft Industry

Alumnus Patrick Brueckner Tackles Aerospace Industry Issues with Aero Gear in AFRL and UConn Collaboration

This outreach bulletin is produced for the students, alumni, faculty, corporate supporters, and friends of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at the University of Connecticut.

STUDENT STAFF WRITERS

Please direct any questions or comments to mse@uconn.edu.

DESIGN

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Gabriela Esposito Katie Nejati Heike Brueckner

SE Department Highlights 2020-2021 has been a revealing year—bringing out the best in our faculty, staff, and students as we worked tirelessly to advance education, scholarship, our profession, and our community despite obvious societal challenges. This bulletin highlights just some of these achievements and stories.

University Professor Cato Laurencin was elected to the National Academy of Sciences. He is now one of the only members ever of all of our nation’s National Academies—also including Engineering, Medicine, and Inventors. Focusing on MSE, Cato received the Materials Research Society’s highest honor, the Von Hippel Award. He received the prestigious NAACP Spingarn medal as well, previously awarded to African American luminaries including Thurgood Marshall, Martin Luther King, Jr., and John Lewis. Cato’s continuing advocacy and devoted mentorship for black scholars, his challenges to to work to understand and change pervasive racism, and his scholarship on the impacts of differential access to medicine for the black community especially during the Covid-19 pandemic are inspirational to us all.

Labs. Rainer Hebert is the director of the industry-focused Additive Manufacturing Innovation Center, and is the associate director of UConn’s Institute of Materials Science. Mark Aindow serves as UConn’s Executive Director for innovation, external engagement, and industry relations. And Trustee Professor Radenka Maric continues as UConn’s VP for research, innovation, and entrepreneurship.

Closer to the department, Avinash Dongare has become our Director of Graduate Studies, while continuing as a key co-investigator of a $12.5M research center focused on US Nuclear Security. Seok-Woo Lee is now our Director of Undergraduate Studies, and just began yet another DOE grant.

Serge Nakhmanson (interim associate department head), Prabhakar Singh, Puxian Gao, George Rossetti, Hal Brody, and Theo Kattamis also continue to be extraordinarily active in scholarship, tech transfer, research, and teaching. In fact, MSE faculty and researchers collectively added almost $7M in new funding, with articles featured in Nature, Advanced Materials, and many other influential publications spanning the materials field.

Michael Fazzino, undergraduate alum and current graduate student, is also committed to our community. As a member of the Army National Guard, he has been the ‘Officer in Charge’ at one of Connecticut’s Covid-19 mass vaccination centers. Another dual alum, Doug Hendrix, raised several thousand dollars for a local volunteer fire department—setting the state record for the number of skydives in a day by parachuting 100 times. Other accomplishments and stories about our students abound in this bulletin. Check our website, contribute to our ever-expanding linkedin presence, or consider a donation or partnership with us to support the UConn materials community further.

Among our newer faculty, Jasna Jankovic received an NSF career award (now among 5 young investigator awards in MSE). Xueju 'Sophie' Wang landed a DURIP grant while also being recognized with the American Society of Mechanical Engineering’s Orr Early Career prize. Yuanyuan Zhu kicked off a Petroleum Research Fund award and established the IN-siTu/Operando Electron Microscopy (InToEM) center. Volkan Ortalan completed the installation of his ultrafast TEM system. Lesley Frame began a $970k DoD grant building on the Center for Materials Processing Data she directs, received the ASM International Silver Medal award, and became the Heat Treat Society’s first female president (established 1913).

In 2022, department head Bryan Huey is in line to become the chair of the association of MSE department heads across North America (UMC). Trustee Professor Pamir Alpay, also now an associate dean of engineering, is overseeing 3 separate multi-million dollar awards with the Air Force Research

UConn MRS chapter’s "Welcome back BBQ" for graduate students I close by highlighting the continuing commitment to strengthening and growing our undergraduate program, best demonstrated by the tireless efforts of lab director and professor in residence Fiona Leek. Through her leadership, dedication, and creativity, MSE uniquely maintained in-person lab experiences for all our students throughout the covid pandemic.

As the shadow of our new building grows—we move into this almost 200,000 ft2 facility in the fall of ‘22 —even with the challenges of the past year the future has never been brighter for UConn MSE. Bryan D. Huey Department Head

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Dr. Cato T. Laurencin is the 2021 recipient of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers Hoover Medal. (Peter Morenus/UConn Photo)

NAACP to Present Prestigious Spingarn Medal to UConn’s Dr. Cato T. Laurencin at 112th Annual Convention Laurencin joins such previous Springarn recipients as Martin Luther King Jr., Maya Angelou, George Washington Carver, and more Professor Cato T. Laurencin of the University of Connecticut is the 2021 recipient of the prestigious Spingarn Medal, the highest honor of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).

achievement during the preceding year or years in any honorable field.” The award is intended both to draw the attention of the general public to African American achievement and to inspire young African Americans.

“This is the most iconic award of the NAACP,” says Laurencin, who serves as the University Professor and Albert and Wilda Van Dusen Distinguished Endowed Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery, Professor of Chemical Engineering, Professor of Materials Science and Engineering and Professor of Biomedical Engineering at UConn.

Laurencin’s seminal and singular accomplishments in tissue regeneration, biomaterials science, and nanotechnology, and regenerative engineering, a field he founded, have made him the foremost engineer-physician-scientist in the world. His breakthrough achievements have resulted in transformative advances in improving human life. His fundamental contributions to materials science and engineering include the introduction of nanotechnology into the biomaterials field for regeneration.

“I am so blessed and honored to receive this amazing recognition, and join the historic ranks of my fellow Spingarn Medal honorees that began its legacy 106 years ago,” says Laurencin, also of UConn School of Medicine.

Laurencin is the first engineer to receive the Spingarn medal honor, the fourth physician, and the fifth scientist. Some of the past Spingarn Medal winners include George Washington Carver, Jackie Robinson, Martin Luther King, Jr., Duke Ellington, Charles Drew, and Maya Angelou.

Named after the late J.E. Spingarn–then NAACP Chairman of the Board of Directors–this gold medal, awarded annually since 1915, honors “the man or woman of African descent and American citizenship who shall have made the highest

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“Dr. Laurencin’s contribution to furthering humanity’s collective achievement in the field of science and engineering is extraordinary,” says Derrick Johnson, president and CEO, NAACP. “As a pioneer of the new field, regenerative engineering, he is shaping the landscape of cell-based therapy, gene therapy, and immunomodulation. Named as one of the 100 Engineers of the Modern Era by the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, he has received countless awards for his transformative work. The NAACP is proud to present Dr. Laurencin with our highest recognition and join the chorus of those that realize what his work means globally.”

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Laurencin is the first surgeon in history to be elected to all four national academies: the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, the National Academy of Medicine, and the National Academy of Inventors. He is the first person in history to receive the oldest/highest award of the National Academy of Medicine (the Walsh McDermott Medal) and the oldest/highest award of the National Academy of Engineering (the Simon Ramo Founder’s Award). In science, he received the Philip Hauge Abelson Prize given “for signal contributions to the advancement of science in the United States.” In technology and inventorship, Laurencin is a laureate of the National Medal of Technology and Innovation, America’s highest honor for technological achievement, awarded by President Barack Obama at the White House.

Laurencin received his BSE in chemical engineering from Princeton University, his MD, magna cum laude from the Harvard Medical School, and his Ph.D. in biochemical engineering/biotechnology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is the CEO of The Connecticut Convergence Institute for Translation in Regenerative Engineering.

As the nation’s oldest civil rights organization, the NAACP remains a fixture in fighting for civil rights and social justice for all. Through its annual awards, it highlights the achievements of individuals and our branches, trailblazers who are actively on the front lines driving progress in business, law, education, and other sectors. In honoring their work and commitment, the NAACP aims to further the legacy of its organization, while championing future generations of civil rights leaders.

UConn Today, Jennifer Walker

National Academy of Sciences Elects Two More UConn Scientists Dr. Laurinda A. Jaffe and Dr. Cato T. Laurencin are recognized for their research excellence and achievements.

The University of Connecticut and its UConn School of Medicine are proud to report the election of two more of its top scientists to the prestigious U.S. National Academy of Sciences. Laurinda A. Jaffe, Ph.D. and Cato T. Laurencin, M.D., Ph.D. were both elected in recognition of their distinguished and continuing achievements in original research.

This year’s historic 120-member NAS class is, for the first time, half women and includes a new height of nine newly elected Black scientists. According to NAS, just a decade ago, women made up around only a quarter of the class and there had never been more than three Black scientists elected.

Jaffe is professor and chair of the Department of Cell Biology at UConn School of Medicine. Her pioneering National Institutes of Health funded research has revealed several major advances in the scientific understanding of fertility. Her research has identified physiological mechanisms that control young ovarian cells called oocytes and their communication patterns with other cells. Jaffe is widely credited for uncovering developmental processes that produce a fertilization-competent oocyte, which initiates embryonic development upon fertilization. A specific discovery was that following fertilization, a change in electrical voltage across an egg’s surface renders it refractory to fusion with additional sperm.

Laurencin’s election to the NAS makes him the first surgeon in history to be elected to all three national academies of NAS, the National Academy of Engineering, and the National Academy of Medicine. As founder of the field of regenerative engineering, his NIH-funded research focuses on the convergence of advanced materials science including nanotechnology, biophysics, medicine, and developmental biology. A pioneer

in polymeric materials science for musculoskeletal systems, his research successes include the regeneration of complex tissues.

“National Academy of Sciences membership is the highest honor a scientist can be awarded,” says Dr. Bruce T. Liang, the dean of UConn School of Medicine. “Congratulations to Dr. Jaffe and Dr. Laurencin for their research excellence, their amazing accolades, and their leadership on the national stage for the University and our medical school.”

The School of Medicine’s three NAS members are now Jaffe, Laurencin, and Se-Jin Lee, M.D., Ph.D., the Presidential Distinguished Professor in the Department of Genetics and Genome Sciences. Lee holds a joint faculty appointment with The Jackson Laboratory for Genomic Medicine. He was elected in 2012 for his research contributions in the field of medical physiology and metabolism.

The NAS was established under a congressional charter signed by President Abraham Lincoln in 1863. It recognizes achievement in science by election to membership, and with the National Academy of Engineering and the National Academy of Medicine it provides science, engineering, and health policy advice to the federal government and other organizations.

NAS membership totals only 2,461 members and 511 international members, of which approximately 190 have received Nobel prizes. Members include experts from six disciplines of physical and mathematical sciences, biological sciences, engineering and applied sciences, biomedical sciences, behavioral and social sciences, and applied biological, agricultural, and environmental sciences.

Based on: UConn Today, Lauren Woods

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Associate Professor Avinash M. Dongare

Professor Dongare Discusses Developments as part of ‘CREDDS’ and the UTC Professorship Professor Dongare reflects on a decade of success with the Department of Materials Science and Engineering Professor Avinash Dongare joined the Department of Materials Science and Engineering (MSE) at the University of Connecticut in 2012, almost a decade ago. Over these years, he has transitioned from an Assistant to an Associate Professor, been appointed to prestigious positions, expanded his research group, and collaborated with various institutions and organizations. Dongare has witnessed many changes in this past decade as part of the growth of the MSE Department. “MSE was a program in a joint department when I joined in 2012. Within a few months, the MSE department formed and has been accelerating ever since. Unfortunately, so did my receding hairline,” reflects Avinash.

Notably, the department has grown in the number of faculty, adding to the research diversity in materials at UConn.

Dongare mentions that the MSE Department is “a young and dynamic department that provides creative and novel research platforms to many researchers, students and collaborators across the country. This growth reflects the excellent leadership and guidance of Professor Pamir Alpay, previous Department Head; Professor Bryan Huey, the current Department Head; Professor Steve Suib, the Direc-

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tor of the Institute of Materials Science; and Dean Kazem Kazerounian of the School of Engineering. Of course, the contributions of the staff and the students of the department form the foundations of the success.”

Over the years, Dongare’s innovative research has received recognition nationwide. He has expanded his research portfolio, increased the number of members of his research team, and taken new leadership roles.

After receiving his tenure and being promoted to Associate Professor in 2018, Dongare’s recent success story includes the Center for Research Excellence on Dynamically Deformed Solids (CREDDS) funded by the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration (DOE/NNSA).

CREDDS is one of four new Centers of Excellence at universities across the nation and receiving 12.5 million dollars over five years. Dongare serves as one of the four principal investigators as UConn partners with Texas A & M University (lead), University of California, Santa Barbara, and the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

“Our focus at UConn is to understand the role of interfaces in structural multiphase metallic materials when

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subjected to extremes of shock and high strain rate deformation,” Dongare says. This development aims to revolutionize such materials, fabricated using advanced manufacturing methods.

“Computational methods which can explore the phase space of materials and their responses in extreme environments allow us to run numerous virtual experiments at a fraction of the cost, letting us especially focus on new materials development and design,” Dongare adds.

CREDDS research has led to several new developments in Dongare’s research group, the “Computational Materials and Mechanics Group” (CMMG). Postdoctoral researcher Avanish Mishra and graduate student Marco Echeverria are the researchers from his team involved in CREDDS. They run virtual experiments of shock deformation of metallic materials and use simulated diffraction patterns and misorientation maps to characterize defect structures equivalent to experimental measurements. Such atomic-scale simulations, and the virtually generated diffractograms and maps, complement the interpretation of experimental in situ characterization of deformation modes (slip, twinning, phase transformation) under

shock loading conditions performed

by CREDDS collaborators and scientists at several Department of Energy national labs. “This ability to compare the results of our simulations with experiments, for the same microstructures and under identical extreme conditions, is critical for the validation of the computational methods that exist today to guide the experiments of tomorrow,” Dongare says.

Also in 2018, the School of Engineering named Dongare as the United Technologies Corporation (UTC) Professor in Engineering Innovation. The professorship was established in 2000 to recognize exceptional achievements among young faculty exemplifying excellence in the impact of their research, teaching, and service contributions. This professorship provides a three-year funding award for professional development and growth. “The UTC professorship has enabled me to add certain flavors of research to my group over the past couple of years,” Dongare says. The funding award sponsored a Senior Design Project that used machine learning methods to identify layered materials for battery applications. The students ultimately won the first prize in the 2018-2019 Senior Design Competition. Continuing this research direction, graduate student Shayani Parida is currently working on a machine learning model

to discover and design new layered materials for battery technologies.

Dongare’s research group especially focuses on developing modeling capabilities that can be compared with those of experimental collaborators at UConn and nationwide. This often requires modeling the behavior of materials at the mesoscale, such as the quasi-coarse-grained dynamics (QCGD) developed by Dongare. Graduate students Garvit Agarwal, Sergey Galitskiy, Ke Ma, Sumit Suresh, and Ching Chen used the QCGD simulation method to understand material responses during shock deformation, laser-material interactions, and coldspray deposition, all at the length and time scales of real-world experiments.

Dongare emphasizes the need for collaborations with researchers nationwide and especially at the national labs as a career development opportunity for the students. Dongare says, “We have active collaborations with several research groups in academia and at the US national labs. These collaborations have evolved over time and provide students excellent opportunities to publish with scientists and engineers from across the country.

I try to make sure every member of my group gets such an experience, ideally as a summer intern or a visiting researcher at the labs. This helps give them exposure to opportunities for the future.”

Computational Materials and Mechanics Group Back: Marco Echeverria, Avanish Mishra, Sumit Suresh, and Avinash Dongare Front: Ching Chen, Shayani Parida, Sergey Galitskiy, and Ke Ma

As to the pandemic crisis, Dongare mentions that it brought some unanticipated challenges but also opportunities. For example, throughout his career, Dongare embraced traditional classroom teaching—he enjoys deriving thermodynamic equations on the board, and more recently with an iPad. Department Head Bryan Huey notes that he regularly hears compliments about Avinash’s classes from undergraduate and graduate students, whether it be core classes like thermodynamics or more focused electives on modelling or mechanical properties.

Over this past year, Dongare ‘flipped’ his classes as part of the necessary transition to virtual teaching starting last March. Students watch recorded lectures in advance of class sessions, so that the time ‘together’ can be spent actively discussing course topics and problems instead. This helps to leverage the online format and encourage student discussion and participation. Interactions with his research group have also had to shift. “While we interact virtually all the time, the inability to be in the lab together or visit collaborators is difficult. Especially as a mostly-modelling group, though, we’re more used to it and it’s not really slowing down my hard-working students,” Dongare shares.

Looking ahead, the future is bright to Associate Professor Dongare. The MSE Department and the Institute of Materials Science have become a home. The growth in research capabilities and the research over the past decade have been especially exciting.

Dongare reflects, “In my heart, I feel like I joined UConn just yesterday.

However, when I see myself in the mirror and see the completely receded hairline, I realize a lot has changed.

And while there is always a challenge related to establishing new directions, the interactions with my colleagues in MSE and IMS encourage me and help me every day. There is also an unparalleled sense of satisfaction in seeing my students graduating with a PhD and being successful in their own careers.”

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The prototype solar tree is being assembled in the metal shop at the School of Fine Arts.

An industrial design team is constructing a 12-foot, aluminum tree topped with nine large, leaf-shaped solar panels. The installation will be a research and education tool, and a place for campus visitors to plug in devices.

A solar tree is growing in an industrial design shop at the University of Connecticut, the inspired result of more than a year’s worth of collaboration by a multidisciplinary team of faculty and students.

The 12-foot aluminum tree will be used as a research and education tool, while also providing a place for students to stop and literally recharge.

Solar trees have been around for years, and typically consist of a pipe-like steel base supporting rectangular overhead panels. The UConn team, however, came up with a design that artfully mimics a real tree. Several slim limbs rise from the base and branch outward toward the top to support nine large leaf shapes that will hold the solar panels. The completed installation will include three curved benches at the tree’s base to provide a place for visitors to sit and plug in to one of the tree’s outlets.

The final solar tree design will include three curved benches at the bottom of the tree where visitors can sit.

in the Materials Science and Engineering Department and part of the Center for Clean Energy Engineering and Institute of Materials Science faculty.

Jankovic said she first began discussing the idea with colleagues about two years ago.

The concept immediately intrigued Dr. Cynthia Jones, a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology.

“It’s an aesthetic object as much as a technical object,” said Christoper Sancomb, an assistant professor in the Industrial Design program in the School of Fine Arts and one of the project’s organizers.

“I told her it had always been a fantasy of mine to build an electrical plant and modify aspects, like leaf shape and positioning, to see how it influenced total electrical gain over the course of the day,” Jones said. In other words, the electrical plant could be used to gain a better understanding of photosynthesis.

The solar tree is the brainchild of Dr. Jasna Jankovic, an assistant professor

Jankovich teamed up with Sancomb to apply for a UConn STEAM Innovation

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Grant to make the project happen. The grant program encourages innovative collaborations between the arts and STEM disciplines (science, technology, engineering and mathematics).

They also assembled a multidisciplinary team of faculty including Jones, Dr. Sung Yeul Park, an associate professor in electrical engineering, and Dr. Stacy Maddern, an assistant professor of urban and community studies. The rest of the crew consists of about a dozen students, including two high school students.

“We all deliberately sought out an opportunity to work with people outside of our fields,” Sancomb said. “There’s value in learning from each other — it sparks new ideas.”

As they set about planning the tree, the group started by asking, what

Image courtesy Christopher Sancomb

Image courtesy Peter Morenus/UConn Photo

UConn's Solar Tree Will Offer Campus Visitors a Place to Recharge

would separate this solar tree from the others out there? They talked about creating a public sculpture that people could plug into, a meeting place that would also provide shade and seating.

They saw the tree as an opportunity to educate people about solar, perhaps with a solar-powered kiosk with an interactive presentation about the tree.

They wanted to make it as “green” as possible. So they decided to use recyclable aluminum, and ruled out the use of any plastics.

And, they wanted to make it portable.

So although the tree will weigh around 600 pounds, it comes apart easily. The benches will contain ballast to anchor the tree to the ground in its temporary locations.

Sancomb, who has an extensive background in creating museum exhibits, is overseeing the tree’s construction.

The metal parts of the tree have been assembled, but it awaits wiring, attachment of the solar panels, painting, the benches and batteries to store power for nighttime lighting.

The nine 50-watt flexible solar panels (and two extras), along with two batteries, were donated by Renogy, a California maker of DIY-friendly renewable energy products designed for a variety of applications.

Meanwhile, students on the team are beginning work on a variety of “microprojects.” For example, Pablo Zarama, 20, a materials science and engineering major, said he is creating sensors that he hopes will measure the optimal angles for the leaf panels to maximize generation.

Vuk Jankovic, 18, a psychology major, said he will use the tree as the focus of a study on different styles of learning. Subjects will see a presentation about the tree in an in-class setting, a remote setting or through virtual reality technology. Jankovic will then test the subjects to see how well they retained the knowledge.

And Dar Jankovic, 16, said he wants to test whether using concave-shaped leaves with a smaller solar panel on

one end and a mirror to reflect sunlight on the other will maximize efficiency.

“We want to branch out to multiple projects,” Jasna Jankovic said. “We will continue to encourage students and faculty to come up with their own projects.”

As it turns out, this tree is not suitable for the kind of research Jones was interested in.

“The leaves ended up being larger than I thought initially they would be,” she said. “We could still do some of that work if we build a second tree that might be smaller and has more flexibility for adjusting things for experimental uses.”

And that’s certainly possible. This tree was meant to be a prototype to test a number of factors, Jankovic said, and “we will apply to the National Science Foundation or another granting agency for a bigger grant to develop this project further.” Sancomb estimates the cost of replicating the prototype tree at somewhere between $6,000 and $10,000; he won’t have a more exact figure until the project is finished.

Before the tree can make it's debut this fall or winter, Sancomb said they have another challenge to meet: coming up with a system of deterrents to keep students from climbing it.

Source: Energy News Network, Lisa Prevost

Jasna Jankovic Receives the Prestigious NSF CAREER Award

Assistant Professor Jasna Jankovic with her graduate and undergraduate students in the Center for Clean Energy Engineering Two years after joining the UConn MSE department, Assistant Professor Jasna Jankovic has received a National Science Foundation CAREER Award. The award will provide funding over five years, allowing Jankovic to advance her research on clean energy technologies, as well as to develop educational programs designed to reach out to young audiences. “Earning the prestigious faculty early career development (CAREER) award gives me the means to realize what I envision

as novel and transformative research, and helps me to inspire new generations to study and work in STEM fields and clean energy,” she says.

Jankovic’s research focuses on developing novel analytical techniques for characterizing degradation mechanisms in fuel cells, which she will also extend to electrolyzers and batteries.

Specifically, her work investigates degradation occurring in tiny fuel cell membrane electrode assemblies that mimic industrial fuel cells. Identical

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location transmission electron microscopy (IL-TEM) allows for imaging the cells before and after exposure to conditions that stimulate operation in a working fuel cell. Although IL-TEM technique has been used previously, Jankovic will employ a novel, specially designed micro-testing setup used in conjunction with other advanced characterization techniques, such as 3D electron tomography and multi-scale operando imaging.

Apart from her development of advanced imaging techniques and her goal of realizing a clean, zero-emission, sustainable energy future, Jankovic’s other main interests center on revitalizing education to inspire students to reach their full potential. To expose young audiences to research in material science, clean energy, and microscopy, she will develop virtual reality (VR) modules, such as “I LoVR Clean Energy” and “I LoVR Nano.” She also plans to create a training module for undergraduate and graduate engineering students called “Engineering Entrepreneurs—Under the Microscope”. This will better prepare them as future leaders in the innovation and commercialization of clean energy technologies. These activities fit with an ongoing project known as “STEAM

TREE”, which is already well underway. Together with UConn faculty collaborators, Professors Chris Sancomb (art/industrial design), Stacy Maddern (urban and community studies), Sung Yeul Park (electrical and computer engineering), and Cynthia Jones (ecology and evolutionary biology), Jankovic has received a UConn STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts, mathematics) Innovation grant to build a solar tree on campus. The tree will serve as a functioning, energy-producing tree, a real-world laboratory, and a gathering place for the university community.

Jankovic’s career started at the University of British Columbia (UBC), where she completed her Master's degree in chemical engineering and conducted research on oil heavy upgrading. Following an introduction to fuel cells by one of her respected colleagues, she fell in love with renewable energy technology, thereby refocusing her career aspirations on clean energy. Following her passion, Jankovic conducted research at the National Research Center – Institute for Fuel Cell Innovation (NRC-IFCI) and earned a PhD at UBC in 2011. UConn’s strong focus on initiatives in clean energy, its numerous industrial affiliates, and the availability of some of the world’s

best microscopy capabilities, attracted Jankovic to UConn in 2018. Along with the extensive facilities, the supportive research environment at UConn greatly influenced her decision to join the faculty.

Although Jankovic’s research career is rapidly accelerating, one of the most enjoyable aspects of her job is working with students. Her research group includes graduate students Amir Soleymani, R. Andres Godoy, Sara Pedram, Aubrey Tang, and Mariah Batool, all of whom are focusing on the characterization of materials in clean energy devices. Her teaching and advising style embodies a holistic approach that not only includes formal instruction in science, engineering and research, but also focuses on practice-oriented education in professional ethics, communication, teamwork, and positive thinking.

Her advice for students pursuing engineering is to “be proactive – take that first step; ask for help and offer help to others; leave a great track record in whatever you are doing; keep expanding your network; and show appreciation to everyone who contributed to your success.”

UConn-Technion Collaboration Develops Model for Affordable Fuel Cell Catalysts Radenka Maric, UConn’s vice president for research, innovation and entrepreneurship; Dario Dekel from Technion’s Chemical Engineering Department; S. Pamir Alpay, UConn’s associate dean for research and industrial partnerships; and Sanjubala Sahoo, a research scientist in Alpay’s group developed a theoretical model that will expediate the development of affordable fuel cells and published their findings in ACS Catalysis.

The model analyzed the electronic structure and associated functional properties of a palladium-ceria catalyst for the hydrogen oxidation reaction (HOR), a critical process in clean energy conversion.

The model determines how various materials and material combinations will interact. This theoretical knowledge will aid in the identification of ideal candidates for developing a precious-metal-free fuel cell catalyst.

Atomic modeling of palladium-ceria catalyst for Oxidation Reaction (HOR). Left: Activation barrier of palladium-ceria for HOR with multiple palladium concentrations, where significantly high HOR activity is obtained for 10% palladium in ceria compared to the rest palladium concentrations. Right: A schematic model AEMFC using palladium-ceria as anode electrode. scan for full story

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Assistant Professor Wang Wins ‘DURIP’ Award for Advanced Laser System Materials Science and Engineering Assistant Professor Xueju “Sophie” Wang was recently awarded a one year grant by the United States Department of Defense (DOD) for her proposal for “High-Performance Laser Etching System for Multi-Layer Soft Electronics.” According to Wang, the grant will be used to acquire an advanced laser etching system that offers selective, precise, and reproducible patterning capabilities of multi-layer soft materials and electronics. “Such capabilities will allow the design and manufacturing of soft, flexible structures and electronics for applications including power-efficient, pressure-tolerance oceanographic measurements as well as wearable/ implantable bioelectronics,” she says.

Wang and her collaborator Biomedical Engineering Professor Yi Zhang were among 150 university researchers who received grants out of almost 800 proposals totaling $50 million under the Defense University Research Instrumentation Program (DURIP).

The highly competitive selection process is administered by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, Army Research Office, and Office of Naval Research.

Ultimately, decisions are made with the goal of equipping universities to enable them to “perform stateof-the-art research that boosts the United States’ technological edge, while ensuring that our future STEM workforce remains second to none,” the program’s website states.

As one of the recipients responsible for utilizing this advanced technology, Wang says she is in the process of acquiring an advanced laser and using it for the design and manufacturing of soft, flexible electronics.In the real world, Wang says her research will be applicable to a number of fields. “Our

developed power-efficient, small, and non-invasive electronic sensors are suitable for many platforms including soft robotics and biomedical devices for health monitoring and disease treatment, like neurological diseases,” she says.

The interdisciplinary applications of her research makes sense considering Wang’s multidisciplinary educational background. She received a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering, a master’s and PhD in mechanical engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology, and did a postdoc in materials science and engineering at Northwestern University. Before settling at UConn, she also was an assistant professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at the University of Missouri, Columbia. “I collaborate with people in electrical engineering, biomedical engineering and the School of Medicine too,” she says.

She is the author of over 20 publications, and she holds multiple patents and disclosures. In addition, her research has been recognized through awards from the professional society, including ASME Haythornthwaite Foundation Research Initiation Award and Gary L. Cloud Scholarship Award from the Society of Experimental Mechanics.

Her diverse knowledge of scientific fields is something Wang values. “To me, a lot of great research is created at the boundary of different fields” she says.

This belief extends into the Wang Research Lab, her research group which conducts interdisciplinary research on mechanics, materials, and structures for energy and human health applications. Their current research interests include mechanics and materials for multi-physics systems such as energy

Professor Xueju “Sophie” Wang storage and conversion, design and manufacturing of stretchable 3-D programmable architectures and electronics, and soft materials and systems.

More impressive than Wang just winning the ‘DURIP’ award is that she did so while adjusting as a new assistant professor to UConn during the coronavirus pandemic this past fall. “It has been great despite the pandemic.

I still have gotten to interact with our great faculty and students,” she says. “There has been some delay in research due to the materials and supplies, and initially diminished access to some shared facilities. But overall, my students still made some great progress even with the pandemic.”

This semester Sophie teaches MSE 3056 (Mechanical Behavior Laboratory). “In response to surveys of our alumni and our External Advisory Board Professor Wang redesigned this class focusing on modelling and finite element analysis, topics of evergrowing importance to the materials engineering workforce,” Department Head Bryan Huey says.

According to Wang, the class triggers students’ interest by connecting what is being taught in class to real applications including heat transfer and structural design.

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DEPART

ENT BRIEFS LEI CHEN

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UConn alumnus Lei Chen is the newest addition to the MSE External Advisory Board. Chen graduated from UConn in 2006 with his master’s in chemical engineering. He has also received degrees from the Harbin Institute of Technology in China, the University of Utah, and Carnegie Mellon University.

Chen currently serves as the Associate Director and Discipline Chief of Pratt & Whitney where he leads teams in Surface Engineering and Process Chemistry.

Lei’s work in the materials engineering industry has been recognized by an R&D 100 Award, UTRC Outstanding Achievement Award, UTC CCS Bravo Award, and UTC, Collins, P&W and Carrier Patent Awards.

RAINER HEBERT

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Rainer Hebert, Professor, Director of Pratt & Whitney Additive Manufacturing Center, and Associate Director of IMS was awarded the following grants:

• $565k from DOD/Air Force Research Laboratory for the research project "Materials Behavior and Properties Under Extreme Conditions"

• $443k from DOD/Navy/Office of Naval Research;

COMP 19 for the research project "Qualification Support for Additive Manufacturing of Production Parts"

• $533k from DOD/Navy/Office of Naval Research;

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COMP 29 for the research project "Advanced Double Hull Structural Configurations for Undersea Vehicles and Weapons"

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LESLEY FRAME

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Assistant Professor and Director of the Center for Materials Processing Data (CMPD), Lesley Frame, was recently featured by Correlated Solutions Inc. on their Facebook page as a part of their ‘#womeninengineering’ series.

Frame was awarded a DOD/Air Force Research Laboratory grant ($966k) for her research project entitled “Materials and Processes for Smart, Agile Air Force Manufacturing Technologies.”

Frame is the recipient of the 2021 ASM International Silver Medal Award.

Frame is currently serving as the ASM Heat Treating Society’s President, the first woman to hold this position.

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Frame was awarded the 2021 Professor Valentin S. Nemkov Adademic Research Award sponsored by Fluxtrol at the Heat Treat 2021 conference.

PAMIR ALPAY

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Pamir Alpay, Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor, Associate Dean for Research and Industrial Partnerships, and Executive Director of UConn Tech Park received a DOD/Air Force Research Laboratory grant ($1,721k)for the research project "Materials and Processes for Smart, Agile Air Force Manufacturing Technologies".

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YUANYUAN ZHU

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Yuanyuan Zhu, Assistant Professor and Director of the IN-siTu/Operando Electron Microscopy (InToEM) center at the Innovation Partnership Building, was awarded the American Chemical Society grant ($110k) for “Structural Basis for the Optimal Promoter Concentration and Distribution of Metal-promoted Oxide Catalysts for Selective Oxidation of Alkane.”

Zhu is currently serving as MSE honors program director.

SERGE NAKHMANSON

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Associate Professor Serge Nakhmanson recently took on the role as interim associate department head. Nakhmanson joined the UConn MSE department in 2013.

MARK AINDOW

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Mark Aindow, Professor and Executive Director for Innovation External Engagement, and Industry Relations was awarded a DOD/Army Research Laboratory/3ME grant ($400k) for his research project entitled “Additive Manufacturing and Advanced Materials Processing for the DoD.”

GEORGE A. ROSSETTI, JR.

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Associate Professor George Rossetti, Jr. is on sabbatical during the current academic year and will collaborate with researchers at the Center for Dielectrics and Piezoelectrics at Penn State’s Materials Research Institute.

Rossetti is currently serving as director of professional education (MEng & Certificate Programs).

XUEJU "SOPHIE" WANG

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VOLKAN ORTALAN

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Lee recently took on the role as director of MSE undergraduate studies.

Associate Professor Volkan Ortalan received funding ($150k) from DOD/ONR for his research project entitled “Custom Design In Situ TEM Holder for the Development of a Multimodal Ultrafast Electron Microscope.”

AVINASH DONGARE

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In his new role as director for MSE graduate studies Associate Professor Avinash is responsible for the MSE graduate program and the support of our graduate students as they navigate academic problems.

PRABHAKAR SINGH

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SEOK-WOO LEE Associate Professor Seok-Woo Lee was awarded a Department of Energy – Basic Energy Science grant ($400k) for his research project entitled “Mechanical Behavior of Materials at the Micrometer Scale in Different Environments.”

Assistant Professor Xueju "Sophie" Wang was awarded a NSF grant (301k) for her project "Tailoring Energy Landscapes to Harness the Multistability for Reconfigurable 3D Buckled Structures."

Prabhakar Singh, UTC Endowed Chair Professor, received funding (200k) from the DOE/Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy/Nextech Advanced Coatings to Enhance the Durability of SOEC Stacks.

SARAH MOORE

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MSE welcomes Sarah Moore, who takes over the administrative program support.

Sarah joins the department with a strong background in administrative and customer services to local businesses and international companies.

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In Memoriam JOHN ERIC MORRAL

John Eric Morral, prior MSE department head as we made the important step to add an undergraduate degree in 2003, passed away earlier this past year. He became a fellow of ASM International in 1995, was awarded the Gibbs Phase Equilibria Award in 2017, and for many years edited the Journal of Phase Diagrams and Diffusion. Professor Pamir Alpay, Associate Dean, notes “John was an excellent researcher and a great mentor. We will all miss him.”

HARRIS MARCUS

MSE Seniors Redesign Alloy Casting of Senior Souvenir During their final semester at UConn, Megan Hurley and Marin Bolko decided to do something different for the final project they would do as undergraduates. Due to COVID-19, their final year was anything but normal and nothing UConn had experienced before, so the mission to redesign the traditional senior souvenir was a fitting project.

The classic souvenir is a brick casting which reads ‘UCONN.’ Hurley and Bolko decided that they wanted to transform this version into a sand casted brick which would instead read ‘UCONN MSE ‘21.’ This brick would be handed out to all MSE graduating seniors.

UConn MSE souvenir plaques

Hurley and Bolko had taken Professor Harold Brody’s Alloy Casting course the year prior which was when the project commenced. At the time, Brody had suggested a project to Hurley and Bolko which would involve comparing sand casting to investment casting of the souvenirs based on quality of the cast and efficiency of production.

The project, like the bricks before sanding, was not a smooth process. Difficulties began not long after the project’s idea came to light, when the coronavirus pandemic interrupted the process. According to Bolko, the bricks were supposed to be for the MSE graduating class of 2020. Unable to continue the necessary in-person work, Hurley and Bolko put the project on hold.

However, instead of letting the project completely end, Hurley and Bolko picked up their work for the 2021 seniors, the class that they would also be graduating alongside.

Former IMS Director, Harris Marcus, passed away in January this year. During his tenure as Director of IMS, Marcus dramatically increased the infrastructure for research within IMS through the acquisition of major instrumentation for both soft and hard materials, and by rigorously recruiting excellent faculty members and graduate students to the University. His career was marked by numerous awards for excellence including the Von Karman Memorial Special Award for Outstanding Contributions to Aerospace and Structural Materials Technology in Past Decade, the Purdue University Distinguished Engineering Alumnus Award, Northwestern University Alumni Association Award of Merit, and induction in the Connecticut Academy of Science and Engineering.

Aside from the pandemic, Bolko and Hurley admit they confronted other obstacles throughout the project’s process. The design went through three iterations before the final design was successfully tested and put into production.

Despite any difficulties, the project became a success and the moments of frustration left Bolko and Hurley with more experience. “Things won’t go the way you planned, expect something to go wrong the first time you do something new,” the two wrote in their project summary.

They finished making plaques just in time for the School of Engineering commencement ceremony. The souvenir plaques could not be distributed in the typical way to MSE graduates in Rentschler Field because of pandemic health precautions. Instead, graduates drove to a nearby parking lot near the field before the ceremony where Hurley, Professor Brody, and MSE Department Head Professor Bryan Huey waited to distribute plaques and to congratulate the 2021 MSE graduates.

Ultimately, the impact of the project will last beyond the brick itself. “Marin and Megan set what I expect to be a tradition for MSE majors to design, fabricate, and distribute UConn-MSE plaques to the graduating class. We can expect each graduating class will improve on the prior year’s design; and like Megan and Marin they will learn that making things is fun and that manufacturing is both art and science,” Brody says.

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Congratulations to the Class of 2021!

BACHELOR OF SCIENCE GRADUATES Imani A. Addo Samuel M. Bedard Marin C. Bolko Kathryn Breen Evan A. Byers Louis P. Crisci Alex F. Distelman Benjamin D. Ellery Brenda M. Gomes Megan E. Hurley Megan R. Jankovsky Gregory M. Joyce Joseph K. Kavgaci Noah D. Kinard Joe P. Loduca Zuyang Ma Karl Douglass J. Mueller Nicolette O. Naya Brittany Nelson

Julia M. Opramolla Chandni Patel Indranie Rambarran Joshua Relucio David T. Rodziewicz Julia B. Roemer Jeet C. Rosa Cameron N. Sanders Samuel M. Schaefer Nicholas A. Simpson Sean Small Kienan H. Tierney Joseph Tracey Zubin Wadia James H. Ward Nicholas J. Wells Marian C. Whitney Yizhi Xu Justin Zendzion

GRADUATES WITH MSE MINOR Cong Hu Joyce N. Caliendo Ounssa Akhayar Heather Brown Stefani M. Chiarelli Katrina Cirilli Evan C. D'Agostino Teagan J. Driscoll Mateo Escobar Gavin P. Fennell

Kyle J. Filleti Dawson M. Hettrick Jonell Hobert Thomas R. Philipson Kristin N. Rheault Caroline L Thompson Evan K. Cyganowski Colin M. Fitzsimonds Rachel E. Martineau Kevin Yang

MASTER OF SCIENCE GRADUATES Mohamad R. Daeipour Jessica M. Maita Maita Bo Zhang

MASTER OF ENGINEERING GRADUATES Michael Bennett Patrick Besana Stephen Buffardi Alexandru Cadar Amy Hernandez Kenan Jasavic

Zachary Konopaske James Kos Brendan McLarty Laura Murphy Neel Nadpara Jonathan Rasimas

PHD GRADUATES SUMIT ATHIKAVIL SURESH Major Advisor: Avinash Dongare Doctoral Dissertation: Mesoscale Modeling of Cold Spray Deposition of Metal Powders AYANA GHOSH Major Advisor: Serge Nakhmanson Doctoral Dissertation: Predicting Materials Behavior with Atomistic Simulations and Machine Learning BAHAREH DELJOO (omitted from 2019-20 Outreach Bulletin) Major Advisor: Mark Aindow Doctoral Dissertation: Effect of Process Conditions on Phase

Stability and Morphology in Manganese Oxide Nano-materials DOUGLAS HENDRIX Major Advisor: Kay Wille and Bryan Huey Doctoral Dissertation: The Characterization and Optimization of Colloidal Nanosilica Dispersion in Ultra-High Performance Concrete JUNSUNG HONG Major Advisor: Prabhakar Singh Doctoral Dissertation: Mitigation of Air-electrode Degradation in High-Temperature Electrochemical Systems: Capture of Airborne Contaminants by Getters THOMAS J. MORAN Major Advisor: Bryan Huey Doctoral Dissertation: Nanoscale Thickness-Dependent Charge Dynamics and Domains Structure Properties in Dielectric and Ferroelectric Materials KENNETH S. OGUERI Major Advisor: Cato Laurencin Doctoral Dissertation: Design and Development of Novel Biocompatible and Mechanically Competent Polyphosphazenebased Blends for Bone Tissue Regeneration GYUHO SONG Major Advisor: Seok-Woo Lee Doctoral Dissertation: In-situ Investigation on Mechanical Behavior of Superelastic Intermetallic Compound CaKFe4As4 at the Micrometer Scale DENNIS TRUJILLO Major Advisor: Pamir Alpay Doctoral Dissertation: Materials Discovery via Data Mining, Machine Learning, and Atomistic Modelling BO ZHANG Major Advisor: Pu-Xian Gao Doctoral Dissertation: Zinc Oxide based Nanowire Arrays for Selective Detection of Multiple Gaseous Analytes at Elevated Temperature mse.engr.uconn.edu

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SE Senior Design 2021

TEAM 1 Flux Core Material Evaluation for Improved Welding of Duplex Stainless Steel Team Members Kathryn Breen Benjamin Ellery

Industry Sponsor: General Dynamic Electric Boat Industry Advisor: Alfonsina Simo, Katherine Russell Faculty Advisor: Harold Brody

TEAM 2 Tether Shape Monitoring

Team Members Joshua Relucio Joseph Tracey

Industry Sponsor: General Dynamic Electric Boat Industry Advisor: Charles Jewart Faculty Advisor: Serge Nakhmanson

TEAM 3

TEAM 4

Analysis of Adhesion Between Polymer Melts and Metallic, Ceramic, And Bimetallic Coatings for Continuous Mixing Applications

Investigation of The Possible Effects of Ultra Sonic Cleaning on the Fatigue Life of Gas Turbine Components

Team Members Zuyang Ma Nicolette Naya Julia Opramolla

Team Members Marin Bolko Jeet Rosa Samuel Schaefer

Industry Sponsor: Farrel Pomini Industry Advisor: Emily Tassinari Faculty Advisor: Montgomery Shaw

Industry Sponsor: Pratt and Whitney Industry Advisor: Scot Webb Faculty Advisor: Seok-Woo Lee

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TEAM 5

TEAM 8

Quench Plug for Ring Gear Manufacturing Process

Additive Laser Powder Bed Fusion 30μm/90μm Layer Height Comparison

Team Members Ryan Cormier Brittany Nelson Nicholas Simpson

Team Members Evan Byers Noah Kinard Karl Douglass Mueller

Industry Sponsor: Aero Gear Industry Advisor: Patrick Brueckner Faculty Advisor: Lesley Frame

Industry Sponsor: Lockheed Martin Industry Advisor: Tom Derco Faculty Advisor: Rainer Hebert

TEAM 6

TEAM 9

3D Printed Materials and Processing for Seawater Applications

Rapid Martensitic Phase Detection for Improved Processing of 301 Stainless Steel

Team Members Louis Crisci Kienan Tierney

Team Members Alex Distelman Megan Hurley Michael Geragotelis

Industry Sponsor: Naval Undersea Warfare Center (NUWC) Faculty Advisor: Volkan Ortalan

Industry Sponsor: Ulbrich Industry Advisor: Sean Ketchum, Keith Grayeb Faculty Advisor: Yuanyuan Zhu

TEAM 7

TEAM 10

Additive Metal Powder Morphology, Flow Testing, Particle Size Distribution

In-Situ X-Ray Evaluation of Traumatic Brain Injury Dynamic Impacts

Team Members Megan Jankovsky Sean Small Justin Zendzion Chandni Patel Industry Sponsor: Lockheed Martin Industry Advisor: Tom Derco Faculty Advisor: Rainer Hebert

Team Members Joe LoDuca Julia Roemer

Industry Sponsor: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory Industry Advisor: Katie Harke Faculty Advisor: Jasna Jankovic

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Undergraduate Robert Williams Seeks to Reduce COVID-19 Transmission through Research on Air Filtration Systems believes his background in MSE will uniquely prepare him to attain his career goals.

Glass fibers suspended in an aqueous solution with various graphene concentrations Robert Williams is one of 17 students selected for the University Scholars Program (USP), a challenging and prestigious program for undergraduates at the University of Connecticut. Working in the Adamson Research Group under the supervision of professors Douglas Adamson (Chemistry) and Seok-Woo Lee (MSE), he has been conducting research over the past year on a project entitled “HEPA Filtration Through Graphene Addition”.

What started as an idea for his application for the scholars program, has developed into promising research with the potential to reduce the impacts of the ongoing pandemic.

His research centers on improving high-efficiency particulate air (HEPA) filtration systems used to remove pollutants from heating, ventilation, and air conditioning systems.

Initially, Williams intended to focus his work on improving the efficiency of these filters at certain particle sizes.

However, he later recognized, that his research might also have implications for reducing COVID-19 transmission.

By combining HEPA filters with electrostatic precipitation technology, Williams seeks to develop a filtration system that can capture small airborne virus-containing respiratory droplets. His work on this topic involves a collaboration with Johns Manville, a company based in Denver, Colorado that manufactures insulation, fibers, and other engineered materials, including the nonwoven products used in filters.

Williams was initially a biology major, but soon realized that his career interests were better aligned with materials science and engineering. He is currently an MSE undergraduate honors student and is pursuing a concentration in biomaterials and a minor in molecular and cell biology. He

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After graduation, he plans to attend medical school, and hopes to pursue research in biomaterials for applications in orthopedics. He also believes that graphene, one of the materials used in his USP filtration project, has the potential to pave the way for other advances in medicine. “To be on the forefront of research that I could potentially apply during medical school is really neat” he says. Apart from advancing his career aspirations, Williams says he chose to complete Robert showing his custom 3D printed his undergraduate Büchner funnel and two graphenedegree in MSE becoated samples. cause the department provides a close-knit academic environment where he is able to get to know both his professors and his peers in many one-on-one interactions.

Williams attributes his success in academics and admission to the USP to his research advisors and other members of the MSE faculty. In particular, he acknowledges Professor Fiona Leek, Director of the MSE Undergraduate Laboratory, who he says provided him with valuable experience in a laboratory setting and instilled in him an appreciation for the skills needed in research. His advisors, Professors Lee and Adamson, were his biggest motivators, giving him the reassurance he needed to realize his potential. Without them, he would not have had the confidence to apply for the scholars program, and he would not have acquired the skills and independence he presently enjoys.

Williams now recognizes that nearly any idea can have unseen potential, and with proper guidance, may result in a new research direction. Thus, he encourages every student with an exciting idea, and the curiosity and drive to pursue it, to apply to the USP.

MSE Undergrad Is Paving the Way for Underrepresented Women in the Field of Engineering In the field of Materials Science and Engineering, Black women are highly underrepresented. When she graduates this Spring, University of Connecticut MSE undergraduate Brittany Nelson will stand for the less than 4% of Black, Hispanic, and Native American women who are awarded a bachelor’s degree in engineering in the United States. She will also be the first generation of her family to earn a college degree.

As a young Black woman in a field dominated by men, Nelson has found inspiration to work harder. “I see this as an opportunity for change. I would not be an MSE student without the support of those who invested in me academically, financially, emotionally, etc. I feel that it is my job to return the favor by setting an example and being a resource to those who are interested in pursuing MSE,” Nelson says.

The MSE senior has strived to do that since discovering her affinity for engineering in middle school. “In the 7th and 8th grade, I attended UConn’s Pre-Engineering Program (PEP) and gained an interest in engineering,” she said. According to Nelson, it wasn’t until high school that she learned about MSE by attending UConn’s Explore Engineering (E2) Program. At the time, she was considering Chemical Engineering (CHEG) and Mechanical Engineering (ME). “MSE was not only fun, but it was a perfect combination of the two fields,” she states.

Her positive experience with the UConn MSE department impacted her decision to study there. “I was specifically impressed by how informed and passionate the MSE faculty and students were about their work. In addition, I gravitated towards the wide range of lab equipment, the friendly atmosphere, and the numerous options of areas to focus on within the MSE program,” Nelson says.

Since deciding to join the UConn MSE program, Nelson has been mentored by Professor Lesley Frame and she recently joined the Frame Research Group. Nelson enjoys the sense of community the group has. “All of the group members willingly provide support and advice to each other in any way possible.”

Whether it was her mentorship with Professor Frame, sense of community, passion, ambition, or a combination of all of the above that motivated her, Nelson was able to pursue research as a Ronald E. McNair Scholar during the summer of 2020. The McNair program prides itself in promoting talented UConn undergraduate students for doctoral studies in (STEM) disciplines, specifically for those from underrepresented populations in our fields, from under-resourced communities, or who are first-generation graduates in their families.

Nelson has also been honored as a Gates Millennium Scholar, Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation (LSAMP)

MSE undergraduate student Brittany Nelsen ('22) Scholar, Ronald E. McNair Fellow, and UConn Day of Pride Scholar.

The research that Nelson is currently conducting within the Frame Research group focuses on the effects of tempering processes on the mechanical properties of alloy steel. The results of this research will inform fundamental understanding of phase transformations and changes in strength due to tempering process parameters and will also have direct impacts on heat treatment in a wide range of industry applications.

“Brittany has really taken charge of this project. Even though we were operating remotely for much of last summer, Brittany was able to pick up the project, learn the fundamentals of steel tempering processes, and analyze a very large amount of data to discover new trends and materials behaviors. She is currently working on preparing a manuscript on this project for submission to a peer-reviewed journal. I have been so pleased to have Brittany as a member of our team,” says Professor Frame.

Though this project and her undergraduate career will end in May, Nelson’s career in MSE is really just beginning. She hopes to continue doing research and is strongly leaning towards graduate school. “It is a bittersweet feeling.

Graduation is a huge accomplishment for me, especially as a first-generation college student with parents not born in the U.S. I am definitely going to miss the great people that I have met within the MSE department and the UConn campus,” she says.

Her future continuing research also holds the potential to continue inspiring young underrepresented girls who are interested in MSE. “To any female students interested in materials science and engineering, I would say go for it! Being an MSE student is extremely rewarding. You will learn so much about yourself and contribute to making a difference in the world of STEM,” she says.

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MSE Graduate Student and Army Soldier Facilitates Mass Vaccination Site

TACKLING THE FUTURE OF ENERGY INNOVATION

Healthcare workers and military personnel at Middletown mass vaccination site As much of Connecticut becomes vaccinated against the coronavirus, many of the mass vaccination sites are handled by not just healthcare workers but also military personnel. Materials Science and Engineering graduate student Michael Fazzino is one of the soldiers who ensures the safety and efficacy of the Middletown mass vaccination site.

After earning his bachelor’s degree in the spring of 2019 from UConn MSE, Fazzino took a semester off to undergo military training before he would continue as both a member of the armed services and a UConn MSE graduate student this past winter.

Though this was a progression in both his academic and military careers, managing the two roles was nothing new to Fazzino. He had been managing higher education and a role in the army since he began both in the fall of 2015. He started the latter as a member of the Army Reserve Officer Training Corps or ROTC. This decision may seem overwhelming to some, but Fazzino was driven by an important influence. “My uncle was the main reason I joined the Army, as he is a veteran and a large influence on my life,” he says.

Third-year MSE doctoral student, Amir Soleymani, working alongside members scan for full story of Professor Jasna Jankovic’s Research Group, is conducting research at the forefront of energy innovation.

INSPIRED BY INTERDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH TO PURSUE ENTREPRENEURSHIP

Quickly, Fazzino was thrown into both graduate research and his work for the military. “I got orders the first week of February to assist with the vaccinations in Connecticut, and our Middletown Wesleyan mass vaccination site opened about a week after that,” he says.

Fazzino then assumed his role as ‘Officer in Charge’ or OIC by day, and graduate researcher by night. “On an average day I will spend most of my time at the vaccination site, and I do what I can when I get home,” he says. He is responsible for managing all of the soldiers at the site. “I act as a bridge between the soldiers and civilians, and as a point of contact at the site for other military personnel,” he says.

As an MSE graduate student, Fazzino has been focused on an Air Force Research Lab (AFRL) project with Professor Serge Nakhmanson’s research group collaborating with the Additive Manufacturing and Materials Data for Manufacturing team.

Fazzino’s main research project involves simulating various aspects of additive manufacturing processes with Discrete Element Method (DEM) software. This is in partnership with Professor Rainer Hebert’s research group. Simultaneously, he is involved in activities for the Metal Casting Group under the guidance of Professor Harold Brody.

“I am very impressed by Mike’s dedication to his duties both as a grad student and an Army officer, as well as his eagerness to learn as much as possible from MSE faculty and peers,” Nakhmanson says. According to Nakhmanson, though he appreciates Michael’s service, he hopes he will return as a full time student once his duties are complete.

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When Moe Daeipour was in high school, he witnessed somescan for full story thing life-changing— a liquid-nitrogen frozen marshmallow. While this may sound insignificant to some, it was the catalyst for Daeipour’s career in materials science and engineering.

Ummay Habiba Contributes to Innovation in the Aircraft Industry Habiba always had a fascination about experimental and laboratory-based research work. Her attraction to research started during her graduate studies in her home country, Bangladesh, which focused on ferromagnetic materials for cancer treatments and for ecofriendly refrigeration systems. While conducting this research, she realized that the impacts of materials scientists in our society are not confined just to engineering, but actually in every sector of life either directly or indirectly. This influenced Habiba to pursue a career in materials science and engineering.

Habiba earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in applied physics, electronics and communication engineering at the University of Chittagong, Bangladesh. As her research drew her interests towards materials science and engineering, she decided to continue her education at the UConn MSE department. She had been attracted by the department’s large pool of talented faculties and the state-of-the-art research opportunities. Although Habiba

entered the PhD program with a nonmaterials science background, she felt that the core courses were structured appropriately for students like herself.

“The comprehensive nature of these core MSE courses helped me well in settle into MSE based research,” she says.

Habiba’s current work explores the application of additive manufacturing in the aircraft industry. Working under the supervision of Professor Rainer Hebert, she focuses especially on the surface and thermal properties of powder using the ESI Additive Manufacturing system. This is a prototyping software which simulates a product’s behavior during testing, manufacturing and reallife use. Powder spreading in particular is a crucial part of the additive manufacturing process and, if implemented well, can diminish the weight and cost of various aerospace components and hence can strongly impact the industry.

“I have an 8-month-old boy. There is a myth for women that they have to

choose between a PhD degree and a family. Many people think that if they want a family, they do not have what it takes to be a successful researcher. This simply is not the case. There are many women and men who are both devoted parents and partners, and also highly successful researchers,” Habiba says.

Habiba’s career goal is to do something significant and revolutionary for the aircraft industry through her current research. In addition to the inspiration which comes from her research topic, and the broader support from UConn’s MSE department, she appreciates the expert guidance from her advisor Professor Herbert. “I am very fortunate to get the opportunity to work with a very supportive and professional supervisor who has provided us a very positive work environment with strong connections to industry,” she says. “I absolutely love what I do, and I am lucky to be able to work on what I love.”

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Thomas Moran Reflects on Industry Internship Across the World During his graduate research, Materials Science and Engineering PhD student Thomas Moran stepped out of his comfort zone and into the eastern hemisphere when he decided to pursue professional industry experience in Japan. With the help of his advisor, Department Head Bryan Huey, Moran was able to join the Japanese electronics manufacturer Murata as a Research and Development Intern.

The work with Murata in Japan was related to their joint project at UConn. “I worked primarily with my colleague Hiroyuki Kondo, using a high vacuum AFM system to study charge injection and dissipation phenomena and compare it to behavior observed at UConn in ambient or inert atmospheres,” Moran says.

Sara Pedram Researches Alternative Energy Sources Graduate student Sara Pedram moved from Iran to the U.S. looking for work in chemical engineering. Instead, she found UConn MSE and an interest in sustainable energy.

UConn’s Materials Science and Engineering (MSE) graduate student Sara Pedram is from Iran, a country known for its energy exportation — specifically, oil. Ironically, the dependency much of the world has on her home country’s industry is one of the forces that drove Pedram to focus her graduate research on renewable energy.

Before Pedram ever started this research, the Iranian oil industry had influenced the direction of her undergraduate studies. “I have always enjoyed and excelled in math and science, and because Iran has a big oil and gas industry, I thought becoming a chemical engineer would be the most sensible career path for me,” she says.

Prior to moving to the United States, she had pursued her bachelor’s and first master’s degrees in chemical engineering from Shiraz University and Amirkabir University of Technology, respectively, in Iran. She then worked as a researcher at the Chemistry and Chemical Engineering Research Center of Iran (CCERCI) and at the Pierre and Marie Curie University in France.

It was during this time in France that Pedram thought she might like to travel again. “I became highly interested in continuing to do work in another country,” she says. “The U.S. is a very diverse country with many opportunities for everyone, so I decided to build a career here.”

(Left to right) Hiroyuki Kondo, Keigo Suzuki, and Thomas Moran. Kondo worked with Moran on the vacuum AFM system while Suzuki was Moran’s host.

While the idea of pursuing highly technical studies in three entirely different countries might scare some, it excited Pedram. In 2017, she packed her bags and moved to the United States to begin looking for jobs related to chemical engineering.

According to Moran, he also gained experience with new areas of research learning about the synthesis of the materials, including producing samples himself. “I found this really valuable, as most of the work we do in the Huey group involves studying incredible materials and devices from elsewhere in the world, rather than us producing the materials,” he says.

However, according to her, it was very difficult to find a job having no previous work experience or degree from the U.S. “This led me to pursue a master’s degree instead. I already had my master’s in chemical engineering, so I wanted to study something related to my background but not the same thing,” she says.

Aside from the different nature of his research, Moran also was exposed to a new work environment. “It was interesting to see the differences between professional life in the USA and in Japan,” he says. According to him, everyone who works there wears a uniform and there is a much more structured work schedule. Despite being out of his comfort zone in this new environment, Moran says he quickly adapted thanks to his hosts and coworkers. scan for full story

Materials science and engineering was something that Pedram says she had become familiar with and interested in during her past research in Iran and France. “It is a highly interdisciplinary field that deals with a number of research areas, and I found it an appropriate area for my long-term career goals. Through my research, I discovered UConn’s MSE program, which is highly-ranked and well-regarded,” she says.

Ultimately, she decided that UConn’s MSE program would be the best choice. “The main things that attracted me to UConn were the Innovation Partnership Building, which is

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filled with the latest and newest technology, the department’s deeply collaborative nature with industry partners and professors internally, and the outstanding faculty,” she says.

Aside from her hard work, it was through these opportunities and relationships that Pedram says she has become successful since beginning at UConn in 2018. “I have had many opportunities to collaborate with industry partners, which have led to summer internships and good relationships with industry professionals,” she says. One of these professionals is her advisor and mentor, Assistant Professor Jasna Jankovic.

“Professor Jankovic is an extremely supportive and inspiring person, which is one of the main reasons I wanted to join her lab group. I knew that I would not only be working on innovative research but also that Professor Jankovic would emotionally support me,” Pedram says.

The Jasna Jankovic Research Group focuses on advanced imaging spectroscopy techniques, nanomaterials for clean energy applications, fuel cells, batteries, and structure-property- performance correlation.

“Sara is a very mature, smart and responsible student. She is resourceful and always finds solutions for research challenges. I can rely on her to do everything properly and on time. It is such a pleasure having Sara in my research team.”

Professor Jankovic says.

Pedram’s research focuses on using renewable energy for transportation applications, specifically proton exchange membrane fuel cells. Fuel cells electrochemically combine hydrogen and oxygen to create electricity, with water as the only by-product.

In our modern-day society where almost everything depends on energy and fossil fuels are exhaustible, Pedram’s work is extremely important. “We must reconsider or innovate our energy sources in order to continue to sustain our civilization for future generations,” she says.

Pedram’s favorite and most recent paper (out of a dozen she has published), “Review on Bio-Inspired PEM Fuel Cells,” was recently published in the Advanced Energy & Sustainability Research Journal and it deals with more on this topic. In the paper, Pedram confronts the climate crisis and addresses the promise and obstacles associated with using PEM fuel cell technology. “It shows how we can design inspiration from nature and implement it into modern-day applications,” she says.

And though fossil fuels can run out, Pedram’s interest in her work doesn’t seem like it will. “Knowing the relationship between the microstructure and properties of materials can allow us to create more useful products with higher efficiency. Using materials characterization techniques to image and visualize from the surface of the material to its atoms is still something that fascinates and inspires me each time,” Pedram says.

During the summer of 2019, Pedram participated in an internship with Giner Inc., a Boston-based electrochemical research and development firm. Professor Jankovic’s group

MSE graduate student Sara Pedram had been collaborating with the company. “It gave me an opportunity to experience an industry environment and see how my research can affect real-life applications, which was really rewarding,” Pedram says.

Pedram is heavily involved with the Center for Clean Energy Engineering, where she conducts her research and where she participated in events to teach high school students the importance of engineering and its role in producing clean energy.

It seems only natural that teaching comes easily to Pedram, as an individual whose unique identity can inspire in so many ways. She has assumed the role of foreigner, immigrant, student, female engineer, environmentalist, and more. The diverse experiences she has embraced have set her up to be successful in many ways.

“Having these experiences in different countries has allowed me the ability to look at problems from many different perspectives. I can solve engineering problems in creative ways because of my exposure to so many research environments.

These experiences have also significantly improved my communication and interpersonal skills. When there is a language barrier or culture barrier, you must find other ways to communicate what you want to say effectively,” she says.

Her worldly experiences translate to her research which ultimately works to solve a universal problem: sustainable energy.

Though Pedram says she decided to pursue her master's degree in hopes of increasing her job opportunities, her goals have shifted. “I initially wanted to get a job immediately after my master's degree, but my experience at MSE and with Dr. Jankovic’s research group has been extremely rewarding and inspired me to continue into a PhD program,” she says.

Sara is currently pursuing her PhD studies to develop a novel design for efficient fuel cells, something that she and Dr. Jankovic are hoping to commercialize in the future.

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MSE alumna Tulsi Patel, PhD (2018), NRC Research Associate

Alumna Tulsi Patel Serves U.S. Air Force as NRC Research Associate Every day at 5 p.m., the national anthem plays base-wide at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio. At this moment each day, Tulsi Patel is reminded of her duty to her country as an NRC Research Associate with the United States Air Force. “While I am just a speck in this complex ecosystem, having this higher purpose is what inspires me every day,” she says.

Just three years ago, the former chemical engineering undergraduate was in the midst of completing her PhD from Materials Science and Engineering (MSE). It was during this time that Patel says Professor S. Pamir Alpay introduced her to UConn alumnus and Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) CTO, Tim Bunning. At that time, Bunning was working as the Chief Scientist of the Materials and Manufacturing Directorate at AFRL. According to Patel, Bunning invited her out to the laboratory for a visit.

Once she was there, she says she immediately knew she wanted to work there.

Patel now conducts her own Air Force related research as part of the ceramics research team in the Materials and Manufacturing Directorate. From her time at UConn, her research portfolio has expanded from ferroelectrics and ceramics for energy storage and conversion to structural ceramics and composites. Currently, her main project pertains to the design, fabrication, and characterization of multifunctional ceramic matrix composites. This work is an extension of her prior PhD research on integrated functionalities for metallic aerospace components.

According to Patel, she is looking at different modes of structural health monitoring for various materials systems.

“One of the five strategic capabilities, outlined by the U.S. Air Force 2030 Science and Technology Strategy, is global persistent awareness. This technological opportunity asserts the need for powerful sensing capabilities including low-cost sensors integrated on distributed platforms.

I hope my work contributes to the efforts tasked by our National Defense Strategy,” she says.

Aside from her main research topic, Patel says she has also contributed to many of the ongoing projects within the ceramics research team. This includes advances with preceramic polymers, and polymer/ceramic nanocomposites.

Fabricating nanocomposites and characterizing them with insitu SEM mechanical testing and TEM tomography is something that Patel says she never thought she would do. But then again, she also never thought she would live in Ohio.

Patel had spent over a decade at UConn and the entirety of her life in Connecticut. She describes the decision to leave this life as a big one because she never imagined herself living outside the Northeast.

However, without the ambition to take this risk, she would not have enjoyed the challenge of so many new experiences.

Patel's ability to face the discomfort of change that came with taking the job could not have been possible without the people and places that came before. “Both Dr. Alpay and Dr. Hebert have had a significant impact on the researcher and person I am today,” she says.

According to Patel, her former advisor Professor Rainer Hebert guided her towards experiences like the NSF fellowship in Korea and AAAS science policy workshop in Washington, D.C. “These experiences have shaped me to be a better engineer and citizen in society,” she says.

Patel says that Professor Alpay is to thank for encouraging her to pursue a PhD. “He pushed me to learn everything from ferroelectric modeling to metal additive manufacturing, and most importantly, how to think outside the box,” she says.

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“It has been rewarding for me and Pamir to see Tulsi develop her skills as a scientist and engineer as she succeeds first with a prestigious NRC award and now even more so in the field at a government lab,” Hebert says.

However, her former advisors taught her more than just MSE skills. “Dr. Alpay and Dr. Hebert have taught me the importance of humanity and integrity.

They always put their students first and were consistently role models,” she says. She finds these traits increasingly important working in a government laboratory, and necessary to be an effective leader. “They are what I strive to achieve in the years to come.

I am just so lucky to have had them as advisors and role models to look up to,” she says.

The new opportunities that her mentors pushed her towards have made her a champion of embracing the unfamiliar. “Be open to new possibilities and take risks,” she says. “Don’t pigeonhole yourself to one job, one location, or one opportunity. There is just so much out there—perhaps a job that you may not know even exists.”

According to Patel, stepping outside of her comfort zone during the past two years at AFRL helped her gain confidence in who she is and what she has the potential to do. “It took me ten years of higher education and a postdoctoral position to finally be able to truly identify myself as an engineer and researcher. I have become confident in my skills, expanding on what I learned in undergrad and grad school, knowing that the sky’s the limit,” she says.

Patel says that she realized this opportunity is not present at all in some parts of the world. “During my graduate studies, I had the privilege to live and travel to other countries, learning firsthand that the boundless opportunities available in the U.S. are very much limited elsewhere,” she says. This recognition adds to the immense gratitude she has for her parents, who emigrated to the United States from India to give her these opportunities.

Jacquelynn Garofano Appointed CTO of the Connecticut Center for Advanced Technology Ten years after graduating with her doctorate – and a nearly decade-long career at Raytheon Technologies (formerly United Technologies Corporation) as an engineer and leadership development program manager – Dr. Jacquelynn (Jackie) Garofano has been appointed the Chief Technology Officer of Connecticut Center for Advanced Technologies (CCAT).

As CTO and lead principal investigator, Garofano will focus on developing and directing new technology projects and programs in collaboration with CCAT’s partner organizations: primarily federal agencies, national labs and consortiums, universities, global industrial corporations and subject matter experts.

Alumna Dr. Jacquelynn (Jackie) Garofano, Chief Technology Officer of Connecticut Center for Advanced Technologies (CCAT)

Garofano began her career as a research scientist at United Technologies Research Center. Much of her career was spent solving technical challenges, providing failure investigation, and developing innovative technologies for the company’s aerospace and building industries. She was a driving force behind utilization of combinatorial high throughput methodology to rapidly execute and assess multivariable design of experiments, focusing on materials informatics approaches, for advanced materials development (including additive manufacturing) and corrosion mitigation.

She has 11 technical publications to her credit, including the Applied Physics Letters, the Journal of Materials Science, the Journal of the American Ceramic Society, and Additive Manufacturing, and holds two U.S. patents.

“I am thrilled to join Ron Angelo and the team at CCAT. It’s an honor to have the opportunity to play an integral role in developing the company’s technical vision, strategic direction and future growth,” Jackie says in a CCAT press release.

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Dharma Maddala Leads Quality in Rolling at the World’s Largest Aluminum Rolling Mill After earning his PhD in materials science and engineering and spending several years in R&D, Dr. Maddala went on to be the Lead Rolling Metallurgical Engineer at the World’s Largest Aluminum Rolling Mill.

While working on his doctorate, Dharma Maddala had been inspired by his advisor, Professor Rainer Herbert, to continue research after obtaining his PhD. “Professor Hebert always mentioned the importance of translating fundamental research into applied research and real-world problem solving” he said. His doctoral dissertation was called “Pathways to improve the sliding wear behavior of bulk metallic glasses: A case study of Cu- and Febased bulk metallic glasses”. This work focused on optimizing the microstructure by thermal treatments, in order to grow a controlled number and size of nanocrystals in the amorphous matrix and/or adding suitable alloying elements to improve the wear behavior.

This introduced him to the field of Tribology, which he works with even today.

After graduation at UConn, he took a role as a Senior Scientist at the Alcoa Technical Center in the Tribology and Surface Science group, supporting process improvements in rolling. “This job opportunity was possible due to the connection that Professor Harold Brody provided. That is the value of having strong industry connections.

The UConn MSE program does a great job in establishing those industrial relationships” he says. His role at Alcoa Technical Center was initially an extension of what he researched at UConn, so his education provided a jumpstart to his career. It provided him with a good understanding of tribology, and especially structure-property-processing relationships. But in addition to his fundamental knowledge, the emphasis on real-world applications was critical as he established himself in industry.

His work at Arconic Technology Center (previously Alcoa Technical Center) resulted in numerous internal publications, seven trade secrets, and four patents. After almost seven years in the research center, Maddala decided to move to manufacturing. “At the tech center, we worked on great projects, but the success rate of commercialization was low. I wanted to understand what is critical for manufacturability.

To get that experience and take the learnings back to R&D, I moved to a manufacturing role. Happily, I had strong support from the leadership to make this career move,” he states.

Maddala’s current role at Arconic Davenport Works, as the Lead Rolling Metallurgical Engineer, supports quality across the entire rolling department.

His team helps develop and optimize process parameters to manufacture product on a commercial scale, serving customers in aerospace, automotive, and industrial markets. Experience in R&D, manufacturing, and operations has furthered his career greatly. Maddala is now pursing an MBA with certifications in Leadership and Business Analytics at the University of Iowa with sponsorship from Arconic. This is providing more in-depth business knowledge, which will assist him with his goal of becoming an executive at the Arconic Corporation for Technology Development and Commercialization.

From graduation to his current role at Arconic, Maddala is grateful for the UConn MSE department in helping him get established in the industry. “It is so important to have a good professional network. UConn’s Materials Advantage club, and participation in other professional society activities,

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MSE alumnus Dr. Dharma Maddala, Lead Rolling Metallurgical Engineer, Arconic Davenport Works

helps establish that platform” he says.

Following his UConn graduation and moving to Pittsburgh, he immediately joined the local ASM chapter as a volunteer. Very quickly he took on several leadership roles, ultimately as the chair for one of the largest chapters of ASM international. This experience helped him further develop his leadership skills, and brought him recognition with two prestigious awards from ASM International (Emerging Professional Achievement award in 2015 and Bronze Medal in 2019).

“MSE is proud of Dr. Maddala, as we are of so many of our alumni, as they continue to rise in their professions and contribute to their professional societies,” relates Department Head Bryan Huey. “While our undergraduate program is a little over 15 years old, UConn has been training masters and PhD materials engineers for more than 50 years. Dharma is a terrific example of what is possible for our students and the impact they can make as graduates."

Patrick Brueckner Tackles Aerospace Industry Issues With Aero Gear in AFRL and UConn Collaboration MSE alumnus Patrick Brueckner is part of a UConn project to advance the state aerospace industry’s impact on worldwide issues When your car breaks down, one typically pulls to the side of the road and the day might be ruined. However, a plane does not have this option. “We have a saying that ‘there is no breakdown lane at 30,000 ft,’” Aero Gear engineer Patrick Brueckner says.

Brueckner graduated from UConn Materials Science and Engineering in 2013 and has since worked at Aero Gear, an aerospace engineering and manufacturing company based in Windsor, Connecticut. As a materials engineering manager with the company, Brueckner oversees much of the crucial work done to ensure air travel’s safety and success. “Our gears are flying all over the world in different applications in helicopters, fighter jets, and commercial planes. An engine is set up in such a way that if one of our gears fails the engine loses power. So, we take our job really seriously to make sure those parts never fail,” he says.

While the significant impact of the company can be simply conveyed, the complex work that Brueckner encounters every day is harder to appreciate.

According to Brueckner, his confidence took a hit when he first joined the company because of this. “When you leave school you don’t know what you don’t know, so you can get humbled really quickly,” he says.

Ironically, what got Brueckner hired was his familiarity with a specific technology with which Aero Gear was not experienced. In fact, he brought an entirely new background as the first materials science engineer hired by the company.

When he joined Aero Gear in 2013, the company was interested in using a new carburizing machine. Through carburizing, gears are made harder and more wear resistant. The old way of

Brueckner quickly immersed himself into UConn MSE joining Professor Pamir Alpay’s research group and working with Professor Harold Brody on castings. “Both had a huge and lasting impact,” Brueckner says.

Less than two years after joining the major, Brueckner had the confidence to travel abroad to continue his undergraduate research there. Having been born in Germany (moving to the U.S. when he was eight), it made sense that he go back to his roots. In 2011, he worked as a research assistant with Lifetex Safety in Germany, a company that produces technologically sophisticated protective clothing for a wide range of applications.

Alumnus Patrick Brueckner, Materials Engineering Manager at Aero Gear carburizing was through an ambient atmosphere furnace while the new system employed a vacuum furnace.

Brueckner says he did not have much experience with the vacuum furnace, but his experience as an MSE graduate was considered valuable in helping the company understand processing with the new machine.

Since then, he has gone from an engineer developing processes for the new vacuum furnace to managing the engineers and operators who work on the furnace. He also manages their metallurgical lab.

The progress he has made is even more impressive given his background. Up until his sophomore year at UConn, Brueckner was unsure of what he wanted to do and was leaning towards a business degree. According to Brueckner, it was when his parents showed him an MSE article that he thought, “this is cool” and the decision was made.

Though the material he learned during his internship is not related to what he does now, Brueckner says the experience was valuable and is something he recommends for all MSE students. “It is definitely a good life experience. You must be open minded. People around the world approach problems differently and seeing how someone else approaches a problem may help you in the future,” he says.

Aside from studying abroad, Brueckner recommends students take the time to immerse themselves in activities outside of MSE. Having played soccer all his life, he found time to continue his hobby throughout and after college as a referee and coach in his free time.

According to him, doing so can be extremely tough in college especially for MSE majors.

However, it is also very important.

“Keep in mind that you have to be a well rounded person. Half of your job in industry is interacting with people. You could be book smart but if you don’t know how to interact with the boss or coworkers then you won't really get anywhere. So, soccer and other

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hobbies or extracurriculars help you develop those skills,” he says.

Brueckner recalls one of his toughest experiences in which Aero Gear was hired by a company to work on creating a particular part. “We found a way to manufacture it that the company didn’t even know was possible. Aero Gear made it and it was such a shock to the company that they actually ended up changing the blueprint for us,” he says.

Currently, many of the projects he is involved with at Aero Gear have been in collaboration with UConn and the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL).

‘Project Daedalus’ is an expansive effort by UConn and the AFRL to build relationships with small and large Connecticut businesses in the aerospace industry to tackle bigger industry challenges. The project also hopes to educate and foster interest in these issues among Connecticut students.

According to Brueckner, within Project Daedalus, Aero Gear has focused on gauging the impact of stress during manufacturing on how a gear performs. This is mostly being done through simulations, according to Brueckner. “This is a significant problem as determining and overcoming the impact of residual stress is a time and cost-intensive process,” UConn Today says in an article about the project.

The advancements of this research could significantly impact the industry which, like Brueckner mentioned, has no room for mistakes. According to Brueckner, the bold determination to tackle huge problems is what keeps small corporations like Aero Gear aloft.

Jumping for a Cause MSE Alumnus Doug Hendrix dusted the unofficial state record of 61 jumps in a day by performing 100 successful skydives over Ellington to raise funds for local fire department.

At the crack of dawn of June 15th - at 5:13 a.m., to be precise - Doug Hendrix climbed aboard a plane at Ellington Airport and took to the skies for the first of what would be many skydives. His purpose was to break the unofficial Connecticut record of 61 skydives in a single day, but his real goal was to accomplish 100 such jumps, a feat achieved in just seven other states.

Image courtesy Tim Jensen/Patch

His confidence in MSE has solidified since college and become his guide through extremely complex projects.

“Some of the parts are hilariously complicated,” Brueckner says. “You go from this problem that seemed insurmountable--like there is no way you can figure out how to make it to the point where we could get to full production mode--and we are one of the main suppliers for some of these parts. I think that is one of the coolest aspects of the work I get to do.”

Doug Hendrix embarked on his first skydive of the day at Ellington Airport. Nearly 13 hours later, he completed jump 100 of the day, a new Connecticut record.

Nearly 13 hours later, at 6:10 p.m., Hendrix touched down for the 100th time, to a raucous cheer from an assembled crowd of family, friends and well-wishers.

Doug Hendrix took on the feat, which he said, was more than just a matter of personal pride. It was part of a larger raffle event hosted

by Connecticut Parachutists Inc. to fundraise for the Ellington Fire Department.

“Obviously, skydiving is more of a risky activity than hiking, for example. So, accidents, while rare, could happen, and the Ellington Fire Department really knows how to take care of the situations and treat everyone with the safety and respect that they deserve,” Hendrix told FOX61 News. “As a part of that, I want to give them a financial contribution and donation back to them.”

Hendrix, a member of Connecticut Parachutists Inc., began skydiving in May 2012, and has accumulated nearly 3,000 jumps. He competed on the skydiving team at UConn, and in 2019, he was a member of the U.S. Parachute Team, representing his country at the World Cup in Eloy, Arizona on an eight-person formation skydiving team.

Based on "Parachutist Shatters State Record at Ellington Airport",

Tim Jensen, Patch Staff

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MSE Alumnus and Current GE Engineer Returned Virtually to UConn through MEng Program James Kos’ passion for education drove him to pursue his master’s degree through the MEng program while working full-time as a GE Engineer

In his current role as a GE Aviation Materials Application Engineer, his two major responsibilities involve performing materials development (i.e. design of experiments, testing, failure analysis, and characterization), and acting as a bridge between research projects and the design teams.

In spring of 2015, James Kos was an MSE senior participating in the UConn Spring Career Fair. According to him, he never would have expected that by the end of the day he would have an offer letter from General Dynamics Electric Boat.

Six years later Kos is no longer a senior in college but instead a Materials Application Engineer in the R&D division of General Electric Aviation in Cincinnati. He has also recently received his master's degree through the UConn Masters of Engineering (MEng) program; a graduate engineering program often preferred by professionals who are already employed.

I would highly suggest the program, it was incredibly helpful both technically and intellectually. It also allows you to take classes and develop skills for the job you want, not the job you currently have. ­— James Kos

In between his current successes and those six years ago, Kos has enjoyed four different roles within General Dynamics Electric Boat and General Electric Aviation. While some might view his job switches in a negative light, Kos does not see it that way. “There’s an impression that jumping between roles is bad for your career, but I found it was quite the opposite. The cross training and connections have helped propel my career trajectory,” he says.

this is not the case in his current job where he often works in teams where the others have very different skills, interest and roles. “Being a materials representative on design projects— sometimes the only one—really pushed me to learn how to work in multidisciplinary teams. This taught me the importance of self-study, as well as knowing when to seek out help from other materials engineers and mentors,” he says.

MSE alumnus James Kos, Materials Application Engineer in the R&D division of General Electric Aviation The necessity to adjust to a new environment and colleagues when switching roles can be unattractive to some. Moreover, being challenged with the discomfort of the unknown is an experience most tend to shy away from. To Kos, however, discomfort and the unfamiliar are to be embraced. “I would actually suggest deliberately seeking out roles and tasks you are uncomfortable with, it forces you to learn and grow.”

Kos may not have given the same advice a couple years ago; this mindset and his confidence have developed with each job experience. “I’ve become less concerned about appearing ‘smart’ to my peers and trying to give answers to people right away. Learning how to say ‘I’m not sure, but I’ll get back to you’ without feeling guilty, even when I’m 90% sure, took some time. I learned that you aren’t judged or punished for doing that, and it is in fact encouraged to go take the time to double check and maybe get a second opinion,” he says.

Working in teams in the MSE department, students are typically with others who have relatively similar academic skills and interests. Kos says

Kos is most excited by the work he does on additive manufacturing or 3D printing for metallic components. “It may seem strange but the most exciting thing to me is how far the technology has left to go,” he says. According to Kos, getting to be a part of the future of materials and knowing where and what they will be used for is one of the best aspects of his job. “I get to look at a GE engine and know what my part was in its design. It makes it very real and satisfying,” Kos says.

With his success in the engineering workforce, Kos sees any opportunity to further his education as valuable.

Many see advanced degrees as further stepping stones to a different job or higher level management. But for Kos, his choice to pursue a master's degree was purely for the sake of learning itself.

“Continuing education is incredibly important,” Kos says. According to him, moving on from college does not mean a person will stop being a student.

Being confronted with new skills and tasks everyday is a part of any job. Opportunities to further oneself should be valued and not dismissed.

The chance to do so through formal higher education was even more ap-

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pealing to Kos given the job benefits available to him at the time. Tuition reimbursement is something James recommends students look for when seeking employment.

classes online, or asynchronously if he had a work conflict. Additionally, he says, the MEng program has a lot of flexibility, and the core classes are professionally very valuable.

The UConn MEng program became the perfect fit as it gave James the opportunity to pursue his degree online and at his own pace. According to Kos, it was helpful to be able to tune in to

“I would highly suggest the program, it was incredibly helpful both technically and intellectually. It also allows you to take classes and develop skills for the job you want, not the job you currently

have,” Kos says. According to him, the program is to thank for his success in his current job.

“My time as a MEng student at UConn was a fantastic ride, and really helped advance me professionally and personally. I learned a lot of new skills, learned from fantastic professors and had an all-around great experience,” he says.

Department Head Bryan Huey and Collaborators Publish in Advanced Materials about “Reviving the Schottky Barrier for Flexible Electronics" Professor Bryan Huey and PhD student Thomas Moran have co-authored a paper entitled “Reviving the Schottky Barrier for Flexible Polymer Dielectrics with a Superior 2D Nanoassembly Coating.” This article was recently published in Advanced Materials, notably as the sole feature on the inside cover of the journal.

Vol. 33 • No. 34 • August 26 • 2021

www.advmat.de

The work was led by Professors Yang Cao and Luyi Sun from the Institute of Materials Science at UConn, and also included Dr. T. R. Jow from the U.S. Army Research Laboratory. Together, they hypothesized, fabricated, and tested a new approach for improved and even defect tolerant dielectric properties in flexible electronics.

These polymer-film based dielectrics, with a novel layered insulating coating, are applicable as insulators, gate dielectrics, capacitors, and more generally as the frame for flexible electronic systems. As a result, they must be able to withstand significant electric fields without failure.

Huey’s group especially investigated these properties at the nanoscale, to directly visualize how the nanocomposite layered structures contribute to the electronic performance. Leveraging a new Atomic Force Microscopy approach developed

by Moran during his PhD studies, they helped confirm a revived Schottky barrier as the underlying mechanism for up to an impressive 40% enhancement in the operating fields of common organic insulators. Such work is important for the reliability and lifetime of advanced polymer electronics, even in the harshest of operating conditions.

Inside cover of the Advanced Materials, Vol. 33, No. 34

adma202170264_IFC_eonly.indd 1

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27/07/21 2:55 AM

GET INVOLVED with UConn MSE Senior Design,

Educating the Next Generation of Engineers Seize the opportunity to become a Senior Design industry partner and tap into the exceptional student talent, distinguished faculty, and state-of-the-art laboratory equipment that the UConn Department of Materials Science and Engineering has to offer.

Students who join the No. 1 public MSE program in the Northeast enjoy excellent employment, internship, and scholarship opportunities, first-rate faculty instruction with the best faculty-student ratio across the School of Engineering, and numerous hands-on research opportunities. The experience culminates with Senior Design, a two-semester project that exposes student teams to real-world engineering problems, design challenges, and collaboration with industry.

As an industry partner, you can expect expert interactions with UConn MSE, polished project updates and documentation, secure proprietary information, and a direct pipeline to our skilled students. Visit our Senior Design webpage at mse. engr.uconn.edu/seniordesign for more information.

WAYS TO GIVE

Your Continued Support Helps Power Materials Over 50 years after our first awarded Ph.D., and more than 15 since our first Bachelor of Science degrees, there’s never been a better time to support those who are following your lead as members of the rapidly expanding UConn MSE com­ munity. We continue to grow, with 20 faculty members and almost 250 dedicated students, postdocs, staff mem­bers, and faculty who excel in all areas and facets of our dis­cipline.

And, we are only 1 year away from our new building. We need your help to fill it with upgraded equipment to enhance our teaching and research mission.

Please consider donating to the MSE Department, where your contributions will directly enhance our efforts to pro­ mote research, education, and outreach.

For further information about personal and corporate oppor­ tunities for matching donations, establishing endowments, naming labs in our new building, equipment donations, spon­ sored lectures, hosted events, or other ways to give back to UConn MSE including potential tax benefits, please reach out to Department Head Bryan Huey.

Materials Science and Engineering (MSE) General Fund Account (22156) This account supports the overall efforts of the MSE Department, with a primary focus on opportunities for students, professional networking, investments in our teaching labs, and outreach. These funds also help students attend conferences, and this year helped to establish the new Metalworking Club which already has more than 100 members.

The Boland/Devereux MSE Undergraduate Excellence Scholarship (31727) The funds will be used to provide undergraduate merit-based scholarships in honor of James Boland and Owen Devereux to students in the MSE Program.

Please indicate the fund(s) of your choice.

Checks Payable to: The University of Connecticut Foundation, Inc. Credit Card: Gift Line @ 800.269.9965 or 860.486.5000 Online: www.foundation.uconn.edu Securities: To make a gift of stock please call: 860.486.2965

aterials Science & Engineering University of Connecticut Department of Materials Science & Engineering 97 North Eagleville Road, Unit 3136 Storrs, CT 06269-3136 mse@uconn.edu www.mse.engr.uconn.edu mse.engr.uconn.edu

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