Monday, Sep 23, 2024 • Brian Lopez : contact

The National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded a grant to a University of Texas at Arlington researcher to create undergraduate pipelines to graduate degrees in materials science.

Stathis Meletis, chair of the Materials Science and Engineering Department at UTA, earned $4.2 million in funding through the Partnerships for Research and Education in Materials Research (PREM) program, which works with minority-serving universities to increase enrollment, retention and degree attainment for students who are historically under-represented in materials research.

The new grant, one of just 11 awarded nationwide, will provide undergraduate participants with scholarships of $2,000-5,000 and support doctoral students in their research. It is a result of Dr. Meletis’ earlier success with a seed grant awarded three years ago that resulted in 25 undergraduates earning scholarships through the program, nearly all of whom entered the graduate materials science and engineering program. The current grant will provide funding for a new set of UTA students to conduct collaborative cutting-edge materials science research and for them to participate in Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) projects at Northwestern University, where students will work alongside faculty and use Northwestern’s materials facilities at no charge.

“It has been proven that undergraduate research leads to better student success and retention,” Meletis said. “Exploration and creation make students excited about the things that they’re learning, and we are giving students in physics, chemistry and engineering opportunities to work with graduate faculty here and at Northwestern to really dive into their interests in the lab and in class. The fact that we had such success with our last cohort shows that these programs work.”

Students in the UTA’s PREM cohort will focus on two topics: one, next-generation microelectronics and nanoelectronics, which can develop memory that will eventually allow researchers to build materials for artificial intelligence (AI) that function like the brain and lead to faster improvement of AI; two, the use of biomimetics and cell-free bioprogrammable biomaterials to build new polymeric materials.

“The NSF PREM program is a valuable tool for UTA and our partners to provide broader access to engineering education and a pathway to a graduate degree,” said Peter Crouch, dean of the College of Engineering. “On the heels of our first successful cohort, this further funding will allow us to support even more students and continue to bolster our research in materials science.”

Since 2004, the NSF PREM program has broadened access to materials science-focused skills and opportunities by supporting strategic partnerships between minority-serving institutions and NSF-funded research centers and facilities at research-intensive institutions.

In addition to fundamental materials research projects, the new PREM awards will support specialized training and mentorship for students and early-career researchers, new research faculty positions, expanded educational outreach to local high school students and teachers, and other activities to build pathways for the future materials research workforce.

— Written by Jeremy Agor, College of Engineering