Nanocomposite Science and Technology

Professor Ajayan received his Ph.D. from Northwestern University in 1990 and spent time at NEC corporation in Japan before proceeding to a Humboldt Fellowship in Germany. He joined Rensselaer in 1997 and is currently the Henry Burlage Jr. Professor of Engineering. He has received the National Science Foundation CAREER award, Burton Medal from the Microscopy Society of America and the Alexander von Humboldt fellowship. Professor Ajayan's research interests focus on the synthesis of nanostructures and the study of their structure and properties in relation to size and confinement. He is one of the pioneers in the field of carbon nanotubes and has demonstrated several possibilities for using these quasi-one-dimensional structures as templates and molds for fabricating nanowires, composites, and novel ceramic fibers. Professor Braun received his BS degree, with distinction, from Cornell University, and his Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering from UIUC in 1998. Following a one year postdoctoral appointment at Bell Labs, Lucent Technologies, he joined the faculty at UIUC in 1999 as an assistant professor of Materials Science and Engineering, and a part-time faculty member of the Beckman Institute. He is the recipient of a Beckman Young Investigator Award (2001); 3M Nontenured Faculty Award (2001); Robert Lansing Hardy Award from TMS (2002); and the Willett Faculty Scholar Award (2002) and Xerox Award for Faculty Research (2004), both from the UIUC College of Engineering. Professor Keblinski is currently an Associate Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at Rensselaer. He earned his M.S. from Warsaw University and his Ph.D. from The Pennsylvania State University. Before coming to Rensselaer he spent several years at Argonne National Laboratory and has earned a Humboldt Fellowship and a National Science Foundation CAREER award. Dr. Keblinski uses atomic-level computational methods to study structure-property relationships in various materials. The main research focus is on modeling of mechanical response, mass and thermal transport in interfacial and nano-structured materials, including carbon and silicon based systems, polymer nanocomposites suspension of nanoparticles (nanofluids) and solid-solid interfaces related to microelectronic applications. Professor Schadler joined Rensselaer in 1996 and is currently a Professor of Materials Science and Engineering. She received her B.S. degree from Cornell University and a Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering from the University of Pennsylvania. Linda is a current member of the National Materials Advisory Board and is the Education and Outreach coordinator for the National Science Foundation's Center "Directed Assembly of Nanostructures" headquartered at Rensselaer. Schadler is an experimentalist and her research focuses on the micromechanical and nanomechanical behavior of two-phase systems, primarily polymer composites. Schadler is recipient of the National Science Foundation National Young Investigator award and the ASM International's Bradley Staughton Award for Teaching.