It's a Material World | Materials Science Podcast

Watch the full episode here: https://youtu.be/2R3o5UMJ0SI When you pick up a racquet at the tennis court, have you ever thought: “this feels great!” Or, “this doesn’t feel so great”? There’s a science to that! Sports equipment companies rely on feedback from amateur players, professionals, customers, and their employees to design better products by translating subjective data into materials engine...

A resume mix-up landed a material scientist into a data scientist role. This happy accident led him to discover how data drives the design and operation of materials and experiments.   At its core, nuclear energy is all about generating electricity by converting water to steam to drive a turbine - very, very powerfully. But there’s a ton of data management that goes into its successful operation....

We hope you enjoy the episode! And as always, let us know what topics you’d like us to cover next!    Learn more about our MSE Career Development Online Course, which includes more industry-specific information and advice. https://www.mseacademy.com/courses/students-tier-2   Join our Discord community! You can meet other passionate materials scientists and engineers from around the world, discuss...

We hope you enjoy the episode! And as always, let us know what topics you’d like us to cover next! Learn more about our MSE Career Development Online Course, which includes more industry-specific information and advice. https://www.mseacademy.com/courses/students-tier-2   Join our Discord community! You can meet other passionate materials scientists and engineers from around the world, discuss the...

We hope you enjoy the episode! And as always, let us know what topics you’d like us to cover next! Learn more about our MSE Career Development Online Course, which includes more industry-specific information and advice. https://www.mseacademy.com/courses/students-tier-2   Join our Discord community! You can meet other passionate materials scientists and engineers from around the world, discuss the...

We hope you enjoy the episode! And as always, let us know what topics you’d like us to cover next! Learn more about our MSE Career Development Online Course, which includes more industry-specific information and advice. https://www.mseacademy.com/courses/students-tier-2   Join our Discord community! You can meet other passionate materials scientists and engineers from around the world, discuss the...

We hope you enjoy the episode! And as always, let us know what topics you’d like us to cover next! Learn more about our MSE Career Development Online Course, which includes more industry-specific information and advice. https://www.mseacademy.com/courses/students-tier-2   Join our Discord community! You can meet other passionate materials scientists and engineers from around the world, discuss the...

What does it take to completely revolutionize the global energy infrastructure?    This is the Energy Transition.    We’ve done it before.    Once the value of gasoline was discovered and understood, gasoline production increased by orders of magnitude within just a few decades. How does this compare with the need to reach net-zero carbon emissions as soon as 2050? Are solar panels, batteries, and...

Bakelite was discovered in 1907. Nylon was discovered in 1935, polyethylene in 1936, Kevlar in 1966. All of these discoveries were revolutionary and had years of work put into their discovery. Each major discovery is years apart. Maybe scientists took a trial-and-error approach, trying new ideas until they worked. Maybe some materials were discovered by accident. What if discovering new polymers w...

We hope you enjoy the episode! And as always, let us know what topics you’d like us to cover next!    Learn more about our MSE Career Development Online Course, which includes more industry-specific information and advice. https://www.mseacademy.com/courses/students-tier-2   Join our Discord community! You can meet other passionate materials scientists and engineers from around the world, discuss...

Cosmetic chemistry is the science responsible for the creation and refinement of makeup, body wash, deodorant, and many more body-based products that people use every day. But who actually designs these products, and what principles do they use? How do they decide what is safe to put on your face or your skin?    In today’s episode, we welcome Kelly Dobos, Cosmetic Chemistry Consultant and Adjunct...

We hope you enjoy the episode! And as always, let us know what topics you’d like us to cover next!    Learn more about our MSE Career Development Online Course, which includes more industry-specific information and advice. https://www.mseacademy.com/courses/students-tier-2   Join our Discord community! You can meet other passionate materials scientists and engineers from around the world, discuss...

What do wearable medical devices, automotive interiors, and healthcare products all have in common?    Electronic textiles (E-textiles) can be used for all of them!    Generally, the resistance of a material increases when it is stretched. E-textiles enable new form factors for conductive circuitry and new products due to their ability to maintain resistance despite stretching. But what kinds of m...

Learn more about our MSE Career Development Online Course, which includes more industry-specific information and advice. https://www.mseacademy.com/courses/students-tier-2   Join our Discord community! You can meet other passionate materials scientists and engineers from around the world, discuss the latest breakthroughs in MSE, share materials-related memes, and get career advice from experts in...

As a new sustainable biopolymer fiber, seaweed boasts a wide development and application space. If this material could be engineered to make personalized products, its combination of light weight and high air permeability could entail promising high-end products while being infinitely reproducible and environmentally friendly.    In today's episode, we welcome Dr. Chris Mekeel, the current VP of R...

Watch the full episode here: https://youtu.be/oBCvpLutoGM Perovskites are a different material than the silicon wafers that make up traditional solar panels – they have a unique crystallographic structure that makes them highly effective at converting photons of light from the sun into usable electricity.   In today's episode, we welcome Akash Singh, a current 4th year Ph. D. candidate at Duke Uni...

Watch the full episode here: https://youtu.be/hLVGRIbH01c Picture this: you BARELY made it to your big meeting on time, but you had to hustle get there. You didn’t anticipate the sweat stains. Why on Earth did you decide to run in your nicest business clothes??    Let’s rewind.    Imagine the same scenario, but you are wearing Ministry of Supply business wear. Instead, you are cool and dry, giving...

Watch the full episode here: https://youtu.be/8t4yR6br6Kg Have you ever taken a long SEM scan, only to realize that the image doesn’t show what you are looking for? Or maybe you were grinding and polishing a mounted sample, only to realize that you grinded too much material away.    Normally, you would have to start over the data collection process in these scenarios. But what if AI could automate...

Two words: Investors. Startups.    So you’ve made a new thing. Or maybe it’s a new process, a new technology, a different approach to the norm. You decided to take this innovation in stride, pivoting and making a startup company centered around your work. But one small problem: you can’t afford to keep the lights on at your startup’s HQ. You ran out of capital. You needed investors, but no one was...

In today’s episode, Punith and David discussed Successful Project Management in Materials Science. This episode could explore effective project management strategies for materials scientists, including how to plan and execute projects, manage resources and timelines, and communicate effectively with team members and stakeholders with the use of ChatGPT AI. Specifically, they discuss:    🔹Career A...

In today’s episode, we welcome  Dr. Wilson Kong, an expert on functional liquid metals. He is currently a National Research Council (NRC) Postdoctoral Researcher at the Air Force Research Laboratory in Ohio, where he applies his expertise to cutting-edge research of functional liquid metal nanomaterials for soft electronics. With him, we discuss:    🔹What is a liquid metal, and what unique proper...

In today’s episode, we welcome, Jason Robinson from Evoco, a Canadian-based company that creates high-quality, sustainable products with plant-based chemistry, aiming to replace oil-based materials in the footwear industry With him, we discuss:    🔹The Evoco’s FATES foam and its role in the footwear industry 🔹️How did Evoco land in the footwear space, rather than other markets like automotive or...

Recycling plastic reduces its mechanical properties, proportional to the number of recycling cycles. If recycled too much, a plastic bag may tear when filled with groceries and its color and texture may change. Making new products, rather than recycling, can be an appealing option if environmental impacts are overlooked. What if we could permanently overcome this degradation in properties of recyc...

Today’s guest, Steve Shell, an accomplished scientist and engineer who is the current Chief Scientist at Heliogen, a California-based clean energy company. With him, we discuss:    🔹️What is Heliogen. What material differences there are between this technology and “classical” solar power? 🔹️Challenges in operating and maintaining heliostat arrays on such a large scale. 🔹How does the use of conc...

Our guest, our very own It’s a Material World team member, Kyle Matthews! You may know him from our Rapid Research Reviews on LinkedIn, TikTok, Instagram Reels, and YouTube Shorts, where he summarizes materials science research papers in 1 minute or less in an informative, easy to understand manner. With him, we discuss:    🔹️What is a materials science conference like, and why should students at...