Johns Hopkins Materials Science and Engineering

10/09/2026

Its fall at the MCP! 🍂 🔬

10/08/2026

MatSci PhD student Jaehyung Lee was recently selected as fellow in the Johns Hopkins University | Amazon Interactive AI (AI2AI) program.

Lee is one of eight doctoral candidates chosen this academic year to receive support through the fellowship program, which is housed in the university’s Whiting School of Engineering.

Lee focuses on supporting materials discovery with agentic AI systems, which use large language models to plan steps to accomplish goals, needing little human supervision.

Lee says the applications in materials science can extend to things like better batteries for cars, phones, satellites or submarines. Scientists are studying new materials that can withstand the freezing temperatures of space or underwater pressure and corrosion. That’s where AI comes in.

“I develop models that use mathematical equations to calculate very accurate data for what is needed to build materials that can withstand those conditions,” says Lee. “Those materials might be unheard of or not commonly used.”

Lee is also a lead developer of AGAPI-Agents, an open-access platform on AtomGPT.org, an AI materials platform spearheaded by Materials Science assistant professor Kamal Choudhary, his advisor.

10/07/2026

These are microscope images of a metal alloy (copper-zirconium-hafnium) 130 times smaller than a red blood cell.

At this scale, you can actually see individual rows of atoms. The diagonal stripes rippling across the frame in image A are actual rows of copper atoms, arranged in the orderly repeating pattern of a crystal. That darker, stripe-free band running perpendicularly through the center is an amorphous alloy layer, roughly 8,000 times thinner than a human hair. The three metals are mixed together in a disordered jumble. See the contrast?

Panel B shows what happens when you analyze the part in the red box in image A. Instead of sharp dots, which would indicate a crystal, you see a soft, glowing ring.

Panel C filters and reconstructs that ring to reveal hidden local patterns within the disorder, showing that even within the amorphous layer's chaos, atoms are clustering together in consistent arrangements.

Together, the images provide a direct visualization of how structural order and disorder coexist within the metal.

The images were captured by MatSci student Tianning Shi using a transmission electron microscope in our MCP facility. They won first place in the 2026 MCP User Meeting's image contest.

10/06/2026

MatSci professor Corey Oses was recently a winner of the Advanced Nuclear Energy Technology Challenge, a pitch competition hosted by TechConnect and ATI that seeks to "identify technologies that make nuclear energy smaller, smarter, faster to deploy, and easier to integrate into modern energy systems." Oses was one of 10 finalists that pitched their projects in front of industry, government, and academic leaders at the Defense TechConnect Innovation Summit in National Harbor, Maryland.

"I was very surprised and honored to be among the winners," Oses says. "Everyone else competing was from a company; I was the only finalist from a university."

Oses says the pitch was one of the patent-pending materials his group is working on for containing nuclear waste.

10/06/2026

MatSci professors Kamal Choudhary and Todd Hufnagel went to Capitol Hill to present in front of the US House and Senate recently. Choudhary and Hufnagel are both part of teams that received NSF funding to build Programmable Cloud Laboratories, a network of “self-driving” laboratories powered by robotic tools and artificial intelligence guidance.

Individual scientists doing experiments manually would not be able to generate enough data to train AI tools for materials research, says Hufnagel. He says the goal is to develop tools to collect and analyze huge data sets and build pipelines of such “autonomous” laboratory data at rates 100–1,000 times faster than human scientists.

The autonomous laboratory teams from all over the country congregated in the Hart Senate Office Building to give live demos to US Senate and House representatives and staff, other PCL teams, and industry leaders like Anthropic. Choudhary’s team is known as ATHENA. He says lawmakers and staff watched as they remotely controlled lab equipment miles away.

“From Capitol Hill, we remotely operated an electron microscope at the University of Tennessee and used an AI-guided feedback loop to ‘3D-print’ crystalline silicon atom by atom in real time,” says Choudhary.

09/23/2026

Thanks to all who attended last week's 2026 MCP User Meeting. It was a great and opportunity to network with students, staff, faculty, and researchers - all current or potential users of the cutting-edge Materials Characterization and Processing facility in the historic Stieff Silver Building.

This year's all-day event empowered materials research, exchanged ideas, and covered a number of sessions including from MatSci professors Kamal Choudhary and Tim Weihs on AI-driven materials discovery and biodegradable implants, MatSci students Jiaqi Zuo and John Hollenbach on lithium metal anodes and autonomous workflows in transmission electron microscopy, and Ioan Lascu from the Smithsonian Institute on the geologic records of bacteria. We also heard from Adrian Podpirka from the Applied Physics Lab, Collin Broholm from Physics & Astronomy, Amy Ballanoff from the School of Medicine, MechE's Daniel Magnuson, and MCP leaders and staff like Souleymane Diallo, Mitra Taheri, Jon Galati, and Abdulazeez Salim.

Thank you to our speakers for participating and sharing their insights with our students and users.

09/22/2026

Dana Hedgpeth for The Washington Post: "Jonah Erlebacher, a professor at Johns Hopkins University’s materials science and engineering department, said the dispute between Grace and some of its neighbors reflects a tension between companies promoting new technologies and people fearful of a chemical process developed, essentially, “behind a curtain.”

W.R. Grace & Co. says emissions from its plastics-recycling machine in suburban Maryland are so minimal they flow from a tube “about the size of a drinking straw.”

09/15/2026

Our students returned to campus, and we got to catch up about their summer internship experiences. How did they take what they learned in the classroom out into the world?

Jack Elder spent the summer as a Materials Engineer Intern for Garmin International, where he analyzed material treatment processes based on cost, lead time, and manufacturing feasibility.

"I conducted chemical and reliability testing on polymer materials, investigated anodization and coating technologies, tested glass filled nylon, various pigments, and ocean-bound plastics, and supported material selection for a new outdoor accessory product. I also partnered with mechanical engineers as the materials specialist on product development and presented my projects to engineering leadership. I gained hands on experience applying materials science to real-world product development while learning how materials, testing, design, cost, and manufacturing come together to create premium products."

- Jack

09/11/2026

The 2026 MCP User Meeting is fast approaching!

Whether you're a current user or simply curious about how our cutting-edge Materials Characterization and Processing facility in the historic Stieff Silver Building empowers materials research, this event is a great opportunity to:

✅️ Discover the extensive domain of user science
✅️ Explore the facility’s capabilities
✅️ Connect with MCP staff and fellow researchers
✅️ Uncover how the MCP can support and strengthen research

This is your chance to meet fellow users, exchange cool ideas, and dive into exciting sessions tailored just for you. Don’t miss out on the fun and networking on Sept. 16!

Register here: https://buff.ly/MABIZTJ

09/09/2026

The Laboratory to Launchpad Conference at JHU this summer, organized by MatSci professor Corey Oses, offered meaningful insights into the evolving nature of research translation and equipped attendees with the tools they needed to turn their work into impactful products.

What does it look like to move to the next step after research funding is secured? When is the right time to file intellectual property? What does it mean to license technology? What does it take to spin off a company? How are we preparing researchers to make meaningful change in the world through their discoveries?

This one-day workshop not only sparked conversation around the transition of energy-related technologies but also offered attendees actionable tools and strategies for gracefully navigating the scientific community.

As the global energy landscape changes, groundbreaking research in ...