Materials Science & Engineering at Illinois Grainger Engineering

Morgan Scott, a master's student in materials science and engineering, was beyond thrilled to attend the 2026 Society for the Advancement of Material and Process Engineering (SAMPE) conference in Seattle, where she soaked up expertise from professionals across various materials research interests.

The trip was funded by a Master's Student Conference Travel Award, and a gift from Robert and Sandra Sherman. Scott thanked the family for the educational and networking opportunities the experience provided.

Materials student attends top industry conference via donor award Master's student Morgan Scott was thrilled to attend the 2026 Society for the Advancement of Material and Process Engineering (SAMPE) Conference in Seattle, with the trip funded through a Master's Student Conference Travel Award from Robert and Sandra Sherman. Scott has interned with Boeing for a nu...

Hello from the 2026 ASM Materials Camp for Teachers, where educators experienced an up-close tour of the high-end research equipment available in the Illinois Materials Research Laboratory on Wednesday.

This camp helps provide teachers with the tools they need to build an even better STEM education experience in their classrooms.

You've met Marie Charpagne the researcher. But what about Marie Charpagne the pianist?

Marie's award-winning artistic talents are on full display at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. In 2026, she showcased her skills in events at the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts.

Marie Charpagne: From lecture hall to concert hall Assistant Professor Marie Charpagne is a passionate person, both as a materials scientist and as a musician. She enjoys playing piano in her spare time as part of events at the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts at Illinois, allowing her to share a skill that has earned her significant awards i...

Meet Yana Kapoor, a Formula 4 racing champion and underclassman student In the Department of Materials Science and Engineering. She is pursuing two dreams — one athletic and one academic — while a fiery passion to compete drives her forward.

Championship mentality: Yana Kapoor speeds to success as F4 racer Yana Kapoor, a freshman in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, could best be described as a champion. She  is winning races on the Formula 4 circuit while thriving in the classroom and hopes to either continue racing or pursue a career in industry after completing her education. 

Could sodium-ion batteries be a viable energy alternative to the plateauing energy density of lithium-ion?

Research from Professors Rosa M. Espinosa Marzal and Cecilia Leal, published in Science Advances (Science), found introducing trace amounts of water into sodium-ion battery electrolytes disrupts ion clustering — improving conductivity and unlocking a promising path toward next-generation energy storage.

This research involved contributions from Zac Goodwin at the University of Oxford.

A drop of water makes all the difference: Rethinking sodium battery electrolytes Professors Rosa Espinosa Marzal and Cecilia Leal have discovered introducing trace amounts of water into salt-in-ionic liquid electrolytes disrupts ion clustering at the molecular level, significantly improving ionic conductivity and battery performance. Their findings, published in Science Advances...

Ivan Racheff Professor Rosa M. Espinosa-Marzal, working with students Ming Jun Lee (PhD candidate) and Isha Bordawekar (2026 B.S. graduate), published research in Materials Horizons explaining how charged hydrogels can achieve ultra-low friction even against oppositely charged surfaces — a key step toward better cartilage replacement materials and a surprising challenge to assumptions underlying hydrogel adhesive design.

Slippery when charged: Hydration lubrication in hydrogels Rosa Espinosa Marzal and her team discovered that positively charged hydrogels can achieve dramatically low friction against oppositely charged surfaces under hydrated conditions — the opposite of what basic electrostatics would predict — because tightly bound water layers at the material's su...

Associate Professor Qing Cao and team achieved a critical advancement toward realizing the potential of three-dimensional chips through the sequential stacking of high-performance silicon circuits. The breakthrough was published Wednesday in Nature.

A new way to build chips: Sequentially stacking silicon to extend Moore’s law Researchers led by Qing Cao have demonstrated a scalable way to directly and sequentially stack high-performance silicon circuits. This advance marks a critical step toward realizing the full potential of three-dimensional chips that could carry computing beyond the limits of traditional scaling.

Congratulations to Assistant Professor Chris Anderson, winner of the James P. Gordon Memorial Speakership from the Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics (Optica)! This honor provides funding for an invited talk on quantum information and quantum optics, to be held at CLEO.

LEARN MORE: https://bit.ly/4tItrY8

From connectivity and reconfigurable systems to nanophotonic materials and optical sensors, new faculty Wenjie Zhou and Yuanwei Li are making waves as their first semester on campus comes to an end.

Two faculty join materials department in spring 2026 The Department of Materials Science and Engineering welcomed Assistant Professors Wenjie Zhou and Yuanwei Li to the faculty in spring 2026. Zhou's Intelligent Matter Lab investigates how the topology and connectivity of materials, rather than chemistry alone, can be engineered to create adaptive, re...