The 21st century presents the world with multiple sustainability challenges, especially on the energy front. Energy demand is growing rapidly, but fossil-fuel combustion drives climate change, creating a need to transform how we generate, supply, transmit, store, and use energy. Water is generally required to produce energy, and purifying water requires energy, increasing... read more »
The Carnegie Corporation names Professor Shuji Nakamura one of 38 ‘Great Immigrants’. Of all the Nobel Prize winners in the United States, roughly a third are — or have been — immigrants. At UC Santa Barbara, four of the campus’s six Nobel laureates are foreign born. Among them is UCSB professor Shuji Nakamura of Japan, who won the 2014 Nobel Prize in Physics for... read more »
Drs. Jean Charles Stinville and McLean P. Echlin of the Materials Department received the 2018 Hetényi Award from the Society for Experimental Mechanics during the annual meeting of the society in June of 2018. The Hetényi Award is given annually for the Best Research Paper published annually in the journal Experimental Mechanics. The paper was entitled “Sub-... read more »
'Intellect, Creativity and Commitment'. Craig Hawker elected to the 238th class of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. The academy is an independent policy research center that conducts interdisciplinary studies of complex and emerging problems. Since its founding in 1780, the academy has elected leading “thinkers and doers” from each generation, including George... read more »
Some sixty people, including UC Santa Barbara faculty colleagues, alumni, and industry partners, convened at UCSB’s Loma Pelona Center on March 16 to honor emeritus professor Larry Coldren, a giant in electrical engineering and materials science, particularly as they relate to photonic integrated circuits and tunable lasers. Some 24 speakers took the podium over several... read more »
The Nobel Prize winner credited with inventing energy-efficient LED light bulbs received an honorary degree at University of Massachusetts Lowell on Wednesday afternoon, the school announced. Shuji Nakamura was presented with an honorary degree and gave the keynote speech during the annual Tripathy Endowed Memorial Lecture. Nakamura was the 2014 Nobel Laureate in Physics... read more »
U.S. News & World Report has ranked UC Santa Barbara No. 5 among public universities. UC Santa Barbara’s College of Engineering graduate program was ranked No. 12 among public universities in its annual ranking of nation’s “Best Engineering Schools.” The UCSB College of Engineering (CoE) earned the No. 24 position among both public... read more »
Materials Professor Omar Saleh receives the Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel Research Award from the Humboldt Foundation, which grants about 20 Bessel awards each year. To be nominated for the Bessel Research Award, scientists and scholars must be internationally renowned in their field, have completed their doctorate less than 18 years ago, are expected to continue producing... read more »
Professor Chris Palmstrøm is the 2018 David Adler Lectureship Award recipient, "For innovative experimental research, lectures, and writing in the areas of dissimilar materials epitaxy, heterostructures and interfaces in thin films". This award recognizes an outstanding contributor to the field of materials physics, who is noted for the quality of his/her... read more »
Blue and white gallium nitride-based light-emitting diodes (LEDs) are the backbone of new energy-efficient lighting systems. The efficiency of an LED white light bulb is 20 times that of a traditional incandescent bulb. The US government’s department of energy estimates in that country alone, the transition to LED lighting will save 261 terawatt hours (TWh) of... read more »
The materials professor, who is also the research director for UCSB’s Solid State Lighting & Energy Electronics Center, has been awarded the 2018 Zayed Future Energy Prize (ZFEP). Nakamura is recognized in the Lifetime Achievement category, which honors “an individual with an outstanding record of achievement in the renewable energy and sustainability sectors.”“The... read more »
UCSB Materials Professor Tresa Pollock has been honored with three separate awards from The Minerals, Metals & Materials Society (TMS).
First, Prof. Pollock is the recipient of the TMS 2018 Morris Cohen Award. This award recognizes an individual who has made outstanding contributions to the science and/or technology of materials properties. Prof. Pollock was cited for “seminal contributions to the development of Integrated Computational Materials Engineering and its application to understanding the... read more »
Materials Department Graduate Student Wennie Wang (Van der Walle group) won a Graduate Student Silver Medal at the recent Fall MRL in Boston for her research on first-principle calculations of electronic and optical properties in transition metal oxides.
UCSB engineering professor Shuji Nakamura receives prestigious recognition from the Institution of Engineering and Technology Shuji Nakamura, a UC Santa Barbara professor of materials — and a Nobel laureate — has been awarded the 2017 Mountbatten Medal by the Great Britain-based Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET), one of the world’s largest engineering... read more »
From the article, "An Illuminating Honor" in The UCSB Current, written by Sonia Fernandez: From UC Santa Barbara engineering professor Larry Coldren has received the 2017 Nick Holonyak, Jr. Award from the Optical Society (OSA) in recognition of his “major contributions to photonic integrated circuits.” The award is presented annually to an individual who has made... read more »
Four Materials Ph.D. students win 2017 NDSEG Fellowships and two win 2017 NSF Graduate Student Fellowships
The UCSB Materials Department congratulates four Ph.D. graduate students for recently being named 2017 National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate (NDSEG) Fellows. Rhys Kennard, Brandon Leu, Sean Murray, and Claire Weaver are first years in the Materials Ph.D. program. Upon receiving the NDSEG Fellowship, Claire Weaver said, "I am so proud of the UCSB Materials... read more »
The Materials Department is pleased to announce a new professorship, the Mehrabian Endowed Chair in Materials. Professor Carlos G. Levi will be the inaugural recipient of this Endowed Chair. Professor Levi is a dedicated educator and world-renowned researcher in the area of inorganic materials for thermo-structural applications, with emphasis on high temperature... read more »
The Materials Department is pleased to announce the appointment of Professor Ram Seshadri as the inaugural recipient of the Fred and Linda R. Wudl Chair in Materials Science. Professor Seshadri joined the faculty of the University of California, Santa Barbara in 2002, where he currently holds appointments of Professor of Materials and and Professor of Chemistry and... read more »
Prof. Craig Hawker to receive biennial 2017 Charles G. Overberger International Prize for Excellence in Polymer Research
UCSB Materials professor Craig Hawker will receive the 2017 Charles G. Overberger International Prize for Excellence in Polymer Research from the American Chemical Society. This is a biennial award that recognizes and encourages accomplishments of unusual merit in the field of basic or applied polymer science. The award, presented biennially, can be given to a scientist... read more »
UCSB Materials professor Tresa Pollock was recently named a 2017 Vannevar Bush Faculty Fellow. As a Fellow, she will receive a research grant of $3 million over five years to conduct revolutionary research on structural materials. From the U.S. Department of Defense: The Department of Defense (DoD) named 13 distinguished university faculty scientists and... read more »
From The Pacific Coast Business Times: The Pacific Coast Business Times is pleased to announce this year’s Central Coast Innovation Awards winners. Each honoree is profiled in the B section of the Feb. 24-March 2 issue of the Business Times. Winners will be honored at an awards reception Thursday, March 16 at the Bacara Resort & Spa from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. The... read more »
From the article "Invention Honors" in the UCSB Current, written by Sonia Fernandez: UC Santa Barbara professors James Speck and Larry Coldren are among the newest fellows of the National Academy of Inventors (NAI). Both professors in the UCSB College of Engineering, Speck and Coldren are recognized by NAI for their “highly prolific spirit of innovation in creating or... read more »
From the UCSB Current article, A Leader of Light: John Bowers, a professor of electrical and computer engineering and of materials at UC Santa Barbara, has been selected to receive the 2017 Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Photonics Award. Bowers is the first faculty member from UCSB to receive the honor, which recognizes his “pioneering... read more »
From the UCSB Current: UC Santa Barbara Materials and Electrical and Computer Engineering professor Shuji Nakamura has been elected to Academia Sinica, Taiwan’s preeminent research institution. Nakamura, UCSB's sixth Nobel laureate, is among 22 new scholars and scientists elected to the prestigious academy at its biennial Convocation of Academicians earlier this... read more »