FACET - Functional Materials and Materials Chemistry Research Group, NTNU

The ISCREAM meeting is an annual must for the FACET group. A day filled with interesting seminars, challenging skiing, good food and nerve-wracking boardgames. 🤩

This week we celebrated the first ever International Day of Ceramics with a seminar covering our own research throughout the year, some insights into entrepreneurship in the field, and an outlook into the challenges and possibilities of ceramics research. Thanks a lot to our Prof. Mari-Ann Einarsrud, Anne Dalager Dyrli (CEO Cerpotech) and Prof. Clive Randall (PennState University) for sharing your thoughts and starting a new tradition with us.

Congratulations to Dr Kristoffer Eggestad who successfully defended his thesis titled:

"Ferroic Materials and Phenomena at Ferroic Domain Walls"

The Assessment Committee were:

Associate Professor Julia Wiktor, Chalmers University of Technology, Campus Johanneberg, Gothenborg, Sweden,
Associate Professor Kristian Berland, Norges miljø- og biovitenskapelige universitet, Ås, Norway,
Director of Ceremonies: Associate Teaching Professor Gerhard Henning Olsen, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, NTNU,

The supervisors were:

Professor Sverre M Selbach,
Dr Benjamin A. D. Williamson
Prof. Dr. Dennis Meier

Congratulations Michael!
Michael Robert Kelly successfully defended his PhD thesis November 26th 2025. Title of the thesis:
“Graphene-based polymer-nanocomposite coatings for marine fouling prevention”.

Assessment committee:
Professor Søren Kiil, Technical University of Denmark, Dept. of Chemical and Biochemical Engineering, Copenhagen, Denmark
Dr. Paul Inge Dahl, SINTEF Industry, Trondheim, Norway
Professor Julia Glaum, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Faculty of Natural Sciences, NTNU, Norway

Supervisors:
Professor Hilde Lea Lein
Associate Professor Ingrid Gullikstad Hallsteinsen
Professor Andreas Erbe

We are celebrating Marcus Hoseth Bentzen, who successfully defended his PhD thesis this Friday. His opponents were Dr. Chiara Gattinoni (King's College London) and Prof. Truls Norby (University of Oslo).
Big congratulations to this great achievement! 🎉💪

Congratulations to our own Professor Mari-Ann Einarsrud who became ECerS Fellow in recognition for her life time contribution to Ceramic materials science and the European Ceramic Community.

Our FACET group members were shining at the ECerS XIX conference 2025:

Caitlin Guzzo won the Student Speech Contest.

Mathilde Meling won a poster prize at the Summer School Poster Competition.

Congratulation to both of you! 🥳

Congratulations to Assoc. Prof. Julian Walker - winner of the Ferroelectrics Young Investigators Award at IEEE ISAF 2025 in Graz, Austria in July 2025 for contribution to synthesis and electromechanical property understanding of ionic molecular and metal oxide ferroelectrics, and extensive collaboration with the international ferroelectric community. We are very happy to have have you as a member of FACET and for placing NTNU on the international map of research.

We had our annual FACET group seminar on March 14th at Skistua. We had great scientific presentations from PhD students and Post docs and a social program with skiing, hiking and board games.

Congratulations Viviann!
Viviann Hole Pedersen successfully defended her PhD thesis February 21th 2025.Title of the thesis:
“Crystallization and texturing of SrxBa1-xNb2O6 and BaTiO3 thin films prepared by aqueous chemical solution deposition”

Assessment Committee:
Associate professor Martin Bremholm, Aarhus Universitet, Denmark
Professor Anja Olafsen Sjåstad, University of Oslo, Norway
Associate Professor Ingrid Gullikstad Hallsteinsen, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, NTNU, Norway

Supervisors:
Professor Mari-Ann Einarsrud
Professor Tor Grande
Associate Professor Julian Bradley Walker

Nora Statle Løndal successfully defended her thesis
“Compositional engineering of Ba-based tetragonal tungsten bronzes” today.

Assessment Committee:
Professor Finlay Morrison, University of St Andrews, UK
Associate Professor Mojca Otoničar, Institut Josef Stefan, Slovenia
Associate Professor Ingrid Gullikstad Hallsteinsen, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, NTNU

Professor Tor Grande has been the candidates’ supervisor, Professor Mari-Ann Einarsrud and Associate Professor Julian Walker have been the candidates’ co-supervisors.

Congratulations