Dr. Alexander Demkov, a professor of Physics, an associate faculty member of the Oden Institute, and one of the Texas Materials Institute's Core Faculty, was elected as 1 of the 18 MRS Fellows for 2026.
Seven faculty members who work with and in the Texas Materials Institute have been distinguished as Highly Cited Researchers for 2025 based on Clarivate's Web of Science Core Collection, a platform that provides reference and citation data from academic journals, conferences, and other documents across disciplines.
By combining advanced surface analysis techniques with computer simulations, the published research provided a deeper understanding of the chemical and physical processes behind the formation of carbon-based films and their response to friction.
Researchers from Dr. Brian Korgel's research group, including Chemical Engineering graduate student Shea Sanvordenker, have managed to create tiny, brightly glowing crystals at room temperature, in normal air, in just two minutes. Perovskite materials are notoriously unstable and often quickly degrade when exposed to air or moisture, but these crystals keep their structure and brightness for over six months, making them very stable.
Dr. Vaibhav Bahadur, a professor in Mechanical Engineering (ME) and an affiliate member of TMI, and ME graduate student Vishnu Katakam, have designed a method for predicting the amount of membrane needed for Osmotically Assisted Reserve Osmosis (OARO). OARO uses special membranes to separate fresh water from hypersalinated water more efficiently than traditional methods.
Materials Science & Engineering (MS&E) graduate student Chen Liu, along with former MS&E graduate student Dr. Zehao Cui, and their supervisor, Dr. Arumugam Manthiram, has published a paper that digs into the gasses released during Sodium-Ion Battery (SIB) use. Exploring a variety of possible causes and solutions, the researchers studied when and why gas forms inside SIBs.
Assistant Professor Kent Zheng has received Materials Research Society’s (MRS) Nelson “Buck” Robinson Science and Technology Award for Renewable Energy, which recognizes young professionals for their ‘development of novel sustainable solutions for the realization of renewable sources of energy.’ Zheng’s work identifies disruptive battery technologies that move us beyond Lithium-ion dependencies, with a focus on the critical phenomenon that takes place during electrochemical dissolution during battery discharge.
Published by the McKetta Department of Chemical Engineering.
Alex Demkov Publishes Book Series, Gives Multiple Lectures this Fall
Dr. Demkov, a Core Faculty member of TMI, was the Editor-in-Chief and contributing author for the newly published series Handbook of Molecular Beam Epitaxy of Oxide Materials. Set in 3 volumes, he wrote the chapter "Basics of Oxide Molecular Beam Epitaxy," and can be found as a co-author on many of the papers found in the last volume, Seminal Contributions to Oxide MBE. He also gave a talk, "Ferroelectric materials for EO modulators" to the EPIC Online Technology Meeting on Materials for Photonic Chips, as well as the invited talk "Ferroelectrics for emergent Si-integrated optical computing," at OPTICS 2025.
Tushar Telmasre, a Materials Science & Engineering graduate student, received two awards for his work and presentations during this fall's 248th Electrochemical Society Meeting, held in Chicago, Illinois in October.
The New Frontiers of Sound Science and Technology Center (NewFoS STC) at the University of Arizone has been named Innovator of the Year – Academia at the 2025 Arizona Governor’s Celebration of Innovation. Dr. Yuebing Zheng, a Core Faculty member of TMI and professor in Mechanical Engineering, is part of the collaboration between UT Austin and NewFoS in topological acoustics alongside other partner institutions.
TMI's First AI for Materials Workshop
Thursday, November 20th, TMI hosted the very first AI for Materials workshop featuring faculty working on and using Artificial Intelligence in their research. The aim of the workshop was to introduce practical aspects of AI that would be useful for experimental researchers in materials science and engineering. They introduced various aspects of AI for researchers and gave some practical examples of how they have used it in labs. Each speaker also offered some tips and guidance on the specific software and their implementation. The workshop consisted of short 10 minute overview presentations, followed by a short question and answer.
Dr. Jamie Warner opened with an overview of the rise of AI and using AI for computer vision for electron microscopy. Dr. Yuebing Zheng followed with a presentation on AI for materials research. Dr. Zhantao Chen discussed Agentic AI for materials research, and Dr. Yijin Liu ended with his talk on utilizing AI for experimental studies of energy materials. The room was filled with a range of scholars: research staff, undergraduates, graduate students from different departments, and faculty from across engineering. The session was broadcast via Zoom, and there were almost as many participants on zoom. With all the interest from students and faculty, and UT's growing emphasis on AI, this will hopefully become a regular workshop.
This summer, the Texas Materials Institute (TMI) organized the Academy for Materials and Nanoscience for the third consecutive year. The four-day summer program is designed to introduce high school students to the exciting fields of materials science, nanomaterials, and nanoscience through a combination of lectures, hands-on laboratory activities, and campus experiences.
This year’s academy welcomed 16 Texas high school students in grades 10–12. Six students were from Austin, while the remaining participants came from Coppell, Houston, Southlake, Tomball, Katy, and Spring.
Throughout the four-day program, students participated in a series of lecture-style presentations and hands-on activities in TMI’s laboratories. They gained firsthand experience with nanofabrication processes in the TMI cleanroom, materials synthesis in TMI’s wet laboratories, and advanced materials characterization techniques, including Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM), and Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM).
The students also had the opportunity to explore the University of Texas at Austin campus and learn about cutting-edge materials research by visiting the research laboratories of Dr. Brian Korgel and Dr. David Mitlin in GLT. Beyond laboratory research, participants received an introduction to the UT Austin admissions process through a presentation by UT admissions staff.
The academy also provided students with an opportunity to interact with graduate students in the Materials Science and Engineering program during an organized lunch, giving them a chance to learn about graduate education, research experiences, and career paths in materials science and engineering.
The Academy for Materials and Nanoscience will be offered again in June 2027, continuing TMI’s commitment to introducing the next generation of students to materials science, nanotechnology, and research.
Fall 2025 MSE 397 Seminar Series: December
Dr. Darrell Irvine, Scripps Research Institute
"Engineering timing and location for next-generation vaccines"
Wednesday, December 3 at 12pm
EER 1.528
TMI Special Seminar
New Strategy for Analyzing Air-Sensitive Samples
TMI Staff Scientist Dr. Hugo Celio has developed a new and unique day of analyzing air-sensitive samples using both Infrared Spectroscopy (IR) and X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy (XPS). Combining IR and XPS provides a powerful, complementary approach in energy materials research, especially for batteries, fuel cells, and catalytic systems. Each technique probes different aspects of materials: molecular bonding vs. elemental composition and electronic structure, yielding a more complete understanding at two different volume scales.
The new research capability allows for the transferring of samples from a single argon-filled glovebox to the XPS while also carrying out complementary FTIR and XPS studies of materials. This helps to minimize cross-contamination between samples. Dr. Celio, with the help of a team of undergraduate research assistants, has developed a transfer vessel designed for vacuum-to-vacuum UHV chambers, allowing for the practical transferring of samples from the IR-glovebox. He is already developing a P2V-interface version (2.0) with new features, like a thin metal-to-metal seal to comply to various conditions. This new 2.0 version should be ready by early spring. For more in-depth information, questions, or to use the new system, please contact Dr. Celio at hcelio@utexas.edu.
Meet New Faculty: Zhantao Chen
Dr. Zhantao Chen joined us this Fall as an Assistant Professor in the Walker Department of Mechanical Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin, where he leads the Group for AI in Materials Modeling and Analytics (GAMMA). Prior to joining UT Austin in 2025, Dr. Chen was a Research Associate at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory (2022–2025). He received his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2022. Dr. Chen’s research develops artificial intelligence and machine learning methods for materials modeling, characterization, and discovery, with the vision of enabling AI-driven autonomous research platforms. His long-term goal is to integrate design, synthesis, and characterization into closed-loop, intelligent workflows that accelerate materials discovery and advance fundamental materials science.
How did you become interested in Materials Science Engineering and your topic?
I initially followed the trend and took a Machine Learning course back in 2018, but I was quickly drawn in by imagining the promising scientific applications, such as modeling mechanical behaviors of materials. That excitement led me to pursue my future work at the intersection of machine learning and materials science.
What has made the biggest impact on your career?
My PhD advisor, Prof. Mingda Li, has had a tremendous impact. I am deeply grateful for the opportunity he gave me to join his group when I was transitioning into the emerging direction of machine learning and scattering spectroscopy. I learned most of my foundational research skills from him, and more importantly, he guided me toward a direction I feel genuinely passionate about. That passion still drives me today. I am also sincerely grateful to Dr. Joshua J. Turner, my postdoctoral supervisor at SLAC. He encouraged me to explore freely while providing insightful scientific guidance, and he was always incredibly supportive of my “bold” ideas. I gained a lot of my research confidence from Josh's encouragement and support. I am deeply thankful to both of them.
What advice do you have for other researchers or graduate students?
Try to build a big-picture understanding before diving into any project. Think about the unique contribution your work can make to the community, and consider timelines, required resources, and how all the pieces fit together. Another practical piece of advice: choose your research projects wisely. Balance short-term "low-hanging fruits" with longer-term, "think-big" projects that excite you. You may not achieve the ambitious ideas anytime soon, but they will gradually shape your unique research identity—and one day, when you've grown stronger, you’ll find those ambitious goals much closer to you.
What do you enjoy doing when you're not working?
Spending a solid block of uninterrupted time writing code and testing new ideas! (Most of them eventually fail, but it’s still fun.) I also enjoy watching detective TV shows. For me, a perfect vacation is a mix of binge-coding and binge-watching TV series.
Upcoming Events & Announcements
Graduate School December Events
- Academic Interview Preparation: December 2
- Interviewing Lab for Grad Students & Postdocs: December 3
- Career Design Lab: December 10
Fall 2025 Academic Dates
- Last Day to Submit Dissertation: December 5
- Last Class Day: December 8
- Final Exams: December 11-13 & 15
- Spring Registration Reopens: December 15-19
- Official Fall Graduation (No Exercises): December 20
