Guest blog by Timothy W.C. Zens

DMSE Nucleates growth of New Scientists

DMSE graduate students completed their first Science Outreach Month this spring. During this pilot program, the graduate students of DMSE preformed materials science demonstrations for over 220 children in 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade. Read the rest of this entry

Prof. Lorna J. Gibson and her colleagues recently published an article on their work on a new “scaffolding” material that has potential for patients with missing or damaged cartilage in joints. The story was further reported by Forbes magazine.

MIT’s News Office profiled Prof. Chris Schuh’s work on nickel-tungsten alloys used for coatings. Research in the Schuh group has led to development of a new nickel tungsten coating, that is not only harder than traditional hexavalent chrome coatings, but less hazardous and therefore greener and cheaper. Using fundmentals like Gibbs’ laws led the Schuh group to a new technique for controlling grain size, a technique that is now used by start-up Xtalic Corporation to fabricate coatings on products as diverse as medical implements and bumpers for semi-tractors.

Prof. Schuh with coated truck bumper. Donna Coveney/MIT.

As of July 1, 2009, Professors Darrell J. Irvine and Francesco Stellacci will be awarded tenure and Professors Randolph Kirchain, Jr., and Krystyn J. Van Vliet will be promoted to Associate Professor without tenure.

Prof. Yang Shao-Horn of Mechanical Engineering with a joint appointment in DMSE also was awarded tenure.

Please join us in congratulating them.

Guest Blog by David Bradwell, DMSE Grad Student

For a fortnight in late March, I joined 50 students from around the world, including five other MIT students, on an expedition to the bottom of our planet. We were invited to Antarctica with the common interest in addressing perhaps the greatest challenge of our generation, climate change. And as I reflect upon my experience – watching blue icebergs calve off of slowly advancing glaciers, laying breathless as we camped beneath a dazzling night sky, or admiring the majestic tails of humpback whales as they dove from our world into theirs, I can’t help but smile. Read the rest of this entry