Princeton Materials Institute

Engineers led by Glaucio Paulino found that the hinge that keeps a ketchup cap open also explains how curved, folded shells can hold multiple stable shapes, a discovery that led them to build a robot that shifts shape and moves using magnets alone, no motors required.

Graduate student Kevin Liu, pictured, spearheaded the project.

Their work was published June 15 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

Read how they did it 👉 https://materials.princeton.edu/news/2026/new-system-makes-building-robots-snap

Congratulations to Saien Xie on his recent National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER Award.

Xie received the NSF's most prestigious honor for early-career faculty in recognition of his exceptional leadership in research and education. By uncovering how atomically thin semiconductors form and how their atomic structure determines their properties, Xie is establishing the scientific foundation for designing next-generation materials for advanced electronics, photonics, and quantum technologies. His CAREER project will provide new design principles for creating smaller, more efficient devices with capabilities beyond today's semiconductor technologies.

Princeton Engineering - Federal investment of $18 million builds on three decades of advances in materials science The Princeton Center for Complex Materials (PCCM), a research center at Princeton University dedicated to pushing the frontiers of materials science, has been selected by the National Science Foundation (NSF) for renewed investment to build on its success in research, workforce development and publi...

PMI's Dane deQuilettes (Princeton ECE) has been honored by Scientific American for his work in advancing the understanding of perovskites and their use in energy.

Scientific American named deQuilettes to its inaugural list of Young American Scientists, a collection of 28 early-career scientists based in the U.S. who are changing the world with their work.

Congrats, Prof. deQuilettes! Read more on the PMI site:
https://materials.princeton.edu/news/2026/dane-dequilettes-named-scientific-americans-young-american-scientists-list?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social_media&utm_id=news26

The Princeton Innovation Conference at Reunions is just one week away!

Come and meet us on Friday May 22 at the Friend Center. The conference is open to all alumni and the entire innovation ecosystem community.

Our executive director Alex Norman will be speaking at the NJ & Regional Tech Ecosystem mingle and networking room and we will have a table at the Ecosystem Resources Fair.

Register: https://innovation.princeton.edu/reunions2026

Princeton Innovation Conference at Reunions 2026 Princeton Innovation Conference at Reunions Friday, May 22 | The Friend Center

starts next week!

Join us Friday, May 22nd at the Princeton Innovation Conference at Reunions, where we will be participating at the Ecosystem Resources Fair and the Innovation Mingle & Networking Rooms.

The Princeton Innovation Conference at Reunions is open to all alumni and our entire innovation ecosystem community.

Register: https://innovation.princeton.edu/reunions2026

Cliff Brangwynne has been elected to the National Academy of Sciences, one of the highest honors given to a scientist or engineer in the United States.

Brangwynne was one of eight Princeton professors elected this year. The other seven were Chris Chang, Maria Chudnovsky, Jianqing Fan, Sabine Kastner, Sebastian Seung, Daniel Sigman and Christopher Skinner. This marks the largest number of new academy members from Princeton University in at least a century.

These eight professors are among the 120 new members and 25 international members chosen in recognition of their distinguished and continuing achievements in original research, according to the academy’s announcement.

Established in 1863, the academy now has 2,705 active members and 557 international members, who are nonvoting members of the academy with citizenship outside the United States.

Brangwynne is Princeton’s June K. Wu ’92 Professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering and the director of the Omenn-Darling Bioengineering Institute. He is an associated faculty member in the Princeton Materials Institute.

Brangwynne’s research focuses on teasing apart the fundamental principles behind biological organization, particularly the biomolecular condensates that form inside living cells. Despite having no surrounding cell walls, these tiny organelles contain RNA, proteins and complex processing bodies. His research team is also engineering entirely new kinds of organelles for biomedical applications. Brangwynne joined the Princeton faculty in 2011. He is also a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator and the co-director of the seven-week summer physiology course at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Mass. He holds a Ph.D. from Harvard University and a B.S. from Carnegie Mellon University.

Read more: https://materials.princeton.edu/news/2026/cliff-brangwynne-pioneer-cells-inner-structures-elected-national-academy-sciences?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social_media&utm_id=news26

Art meets science!

Last week, PMI's Kai Filsinger led a glassblowing event with the Princeton Center on Science and Technology and the Princeton University Materials Research Society undergraduate chapter.

Students learned about the fascinating properties of glass-how it transforms under heat, the chemistry behind its colors, and the physics that makes it both delicate and strong. Attendees then made their own glass with a professional glassblower!

Last week we welcomed back Michael McGehee '94 for a PMI/Princeton Center for Complex Materials seminar!

His talk was titled, “Harnessing Sunlight with Perovskite Tandem Solar Cells and Windows that have Adjustable Tinting.”

Mike McGehee was one of the first students to receive a certificate in materials science and engineering from Princeton, soon after PMI was established!

Here he is with his advisor, Ilhan Aksay, the Pomeroy and Betty Perry Smith Professor in Engineering, Emeritus and Emeritus Professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering, in 1994 and today!

Princeton Engineering | Princeton Alumni | Princeton Alumni Weekly

Our annual research symposium is only two weeks away!

Check out the agenda and speaker list here and register now: https://materials.princeton.edu/events/symposium-2026?utm_source=social_media&utm_medium=facebook&utm_id=events26