2023 Materials Today Rising Star Award Winners Announced

The Materials Today ‘Rising Star Awards’ recognize researchers in materials science and engineering who have demonstrated themselves to be exceptionally capable researchers with the potential to become future leaders in the field.

The nomination for 2023 Materials Today ‘Rising Star Awards’ was closed on 31^st May and the winners will be announced during the inaugural Materials Today Conference on 5^th August in Singapore. This year, there are in total 6 winners from three different research fields.

Read below for more information on the winners!

Category: Energy Conversion & Storage

Dr. Raphaële Clément is an Assistant Professor in the Materials Department at the University of California Santa Barbara. She received her Ph.D. in Chemistry in 2016 from the University of Cambridge, working under the supervision of Prof. Clare Grey. Her doctoral work focused on the study of layered sodium transition metal oxide cathodes for Na-ion secondary batteries. She then joined the group of Prof. Gerbrand Ceder at the University of California Berkeley, focusing on cation-disordered rocksalt oxyfluorides for Li-ion battery applications. She joined the Faculty at UCSB in 2018. Her primary research focus is the development and implementation of magnetic resonance techniques (experimental and computational) for the study of battery materials and beyond, with a strong emphasis on operando tools. Her work has been recognized through an NSF CAREER award (2022), a nomination as Journal of Materials Chemistry A Emerging Investigator (2022), and a Materials Today Rising Star Award (2023). She is a Topical Editor for ACS Energy Letters.

• Van der Ven, A., McMeeking, R. M., Clément, R. J., & Garikipati, K. (2023). Current Opinion in Solid State and Materials Science, 27(2), 101056. Ferroelastic toughening: Can it solve the mechanics challenges of solid electrolytes? - ScienceDirect
• Ji, Y., Palmer, C., Foley, E. E., Giovine, R., Yoshida, E., Sebti, E., ... & Clément, R. J. (2023). Carbon, 204, 26-35. Valorizing the carbon byproduct of methane pyrolysis in batteries - ScienceDirect
• Dally, R., Clément, R. J., Chisnell, R., Taylor, S., Butala, M., Doan-Nguyen, V., ... & Wilson, S. D. (2017). Journal of Crystal Growth, 459, 203-208. Floating zone growth of α-Na0.90MnO2 single crystals - ScienceDirect

Dr. Michael Saliba (@miliba01) is a Full Professor and the Director of the Institute for Photovoltaics (ipv) at the University of Stuttgart (@SalibaLab), with a dual appointment at the Research Center Jülich, Germany. His research focuses on a deeper understanding and improvement of optoelectronic properties of photovoltaic materials with an emphasis on emerging perovskites for a sustainable energy future. Since 2021, Michael is the Speaker of the DFG Graduate School (GRK) 2642 for “Quantum Engineering”. In 2022, he was awarded a Starting Grant by the European Research Council (ERC).

Previously, Michael was at TU Darmstadt, Fribourg University and a Marie Curie Fellow at EPFL with research stays at Cornell and Stanford. He obtained his PhD in Physics at Oxford University in 2014 and MSc degrees in Physics and Mathematics at Stuttgart University together with the Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research.

Michael has published numerous works in the fields of plasmonics, lasers, LEDs and perovskite optoelectronics. He has been listed as ISI Highly Cited Researcher since 2018. He was awarded the Heinz-Maier-Leibnitz prize by the German Research Foundation (DFG), the EU-40 Materials Prize of the European Materials Research Society and was named as one of the World’s 35 Innovators Under 35 by the MIT Technology Review.

• Holzhey, P., Yadav, P., Turren-Cruz, S. H., Ummadisingu, A., Grätzel, M., Hagfeldt, A., & Saliba, M. (2019). Materials Today, 29, 10-19. A chain is as strong as its weakest link – Stability study of MAPbI3 under light and temperature - ScienceDirect
• Fu, W., Ricciardulli, A. G., Akkerman, Q. A., John, R. A., Tavakoli, M. M., Essig, S., ... & Saliba, M. (2022). Materials Today. Stability of perovskite materials and devices - ScienceDirect
• Holzhey, P., Prettl, M., Collavini, S., Chang, N. L., & Saliba, M. (2023). Joule, 7(2), 257-271. Toward commercialization with lightweight, flexible perovskite solar cells for residential photovoltaics - ScienceDirect

Category: Biomaterials

Dr. Zheng Yan is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Chemical & Biomedical Engineering and the Department of Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering, as well as a Principal Investigator at the NextGen Precision Health Institute at the University of Missouri-Columbia (MU). He earned his Ph.D. from Rice University and received his postdoctoral training at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign before joining the MU faculty in August 2017. Dr. Yan's Soft Materials and Bio-Electronics (SMBE) Lab is dedicated to advancing the field of soft bioelectronics through fundamental biomaterials and manufacturing innovations, with the ultimate goal of revolutionizing personalized healthcare and neural interfaces. Thus far, he has published over 80 research articles, with more than 14,000 citations, and his h-index is 49. Dr. Yan has received numerous accolades, including the NSF CAREER Award, the University of Missouri System President's Award for Early Career Excellence, the MU College of Engineering Outstanding Junior Faculty Research Award, and the Chinese Association of Biomaterials (CAB) Young Investigator Award.

• Yan, Z., Han, M., Yang, Y., Nan, K., Luan, H., Luo, Y., ... & Rogers, J. A. (2017). Extreme Mechanics Letters, 11, 96-104. Deterministic assembly of 3D mesostructures in advanced materials via compressive buckling: A short review of recent progress - ScienceDirect
• Xu, Y., Fei, Q., Page, M., Zhao, G., Ling, Y., Stoll, S. B., & Yan, Z. (2021). iScience, 24(7). Paper-based wearable electronics - ScienceDirect
• Bayati, M., Numaan, M., Kadhem, A., Salahshoor, Z., Qasim, S., Deng, H., ... & de Cortalezzi, M. F. (2020). Journal of Environmental Chemical Engineering, 8(5), 104407. Adsorption of atrazine by laser induced graphitic material: An efficient, scalable and green alternative for pollution abatement - ScienceDirect

Dr. Caio G. Otoni is an Assistant Professor of Materials Engineering/Polymer Science at the Federal University of São Carlos (UFSCar; as of 2020), from where he received his Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering (2017) in a dual affiliation with Embrapa Instrumentation. Food Engineer by training, Dr. Otoni was a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute of Chemistry of the University of Campinas (Unicamp; 2017–2020) and a visiting scholar at the Department Bioproducts and Bioprocesses of Aalto University (2019), both dealing with the Physical Chemistry of Biocolloids. Dr. Otoni has been with the Agricultural Research Service (ARS) of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA; 2010–2011). His research is centered at biobased multifunctional materials, nanocomposites and nanohybrids, and other biopolymeric colloids that are assembled into materials for food, biomedical, and agricultural applications.

• Ferreira, F. V., Otoni, C. G., Kevin, J., Barud, H. S., Lona, L. M., Cranston, E. D., & Rojas, O. J. (2020). Materials Today, 37, 126-141. Porous nanocellulose gels and foams: Breakthrough status in the development of scaffolds for tissue engineering - ScienceDirect
• Silva, R. R., Raymundo-Pereira, P. A., Campos, A. M., Wilson, D., Otoni, C. G., Barud, H. S., ... & Oliveira Jr, O. N. (2020). Talanta, 218, 121153. Microbial nanocellulose adherent to human skin used in electrochemical sensors to detect metal ions and biomarkers in sweat - ScienceDirect
• Ferreira, F. V., Otoni, C. G., Lopes, J. H., de Souza, L. P., Mei, L. H., Lona, L. M., ... & Mattoso, L. H. (2021). Materials Science and Engineering: C, 123, 111853. Ultrathin polymer fibers hybridized with bioactive ceramics: A review on fundamental pathways of electrospinning towards bone regeneration - ScienceDirect

Category: Materials Data Science & AI

Dr. Grace X. Gu is an Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley. She received her PhD and MS in Mechanical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and her BS in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Her current research focuses on creating new materials with superior properties for mechanical, biological, and energy applications using multiphysics modeling, artificial intelligence, and high-throughput computing, as well as developing intelligent additive manufacturing technologies to realize complex material designs. Gu is the recipient of several awards, including the TMS Early Career Faculty Fellow Award, Sloan Research Fellowship, ACS PMSE Young Investigator Award, ASME ORR Early Career Award, ONR Young Investigator Award, DARPA Young Faculty Award, and SME Outstanding Young Manufacturing Engineer Award. She was also named as one of MIT Technology Review’s 35 Innovators under 35. She has given dozens of invited lectures and seminars, including a talk at TEDxBerkeley. Gu serves on the advisory board of Advanced Intelligent Systems, MRS Communications, and Materials Horizons.

• Jin, Z., Zhang, Z., Ott, J., & Gu, G. X. (2021). Additive Manufacturing, 37, 101696. Precise localization and semantic segmentation detection of printing conditions in fused filament fabrication technologies using machine learning - ScienceDirect
• Yang, C., Kim, Y., Ryu, S., & Gu, G. X. (2020). Materials & Design, 189, 108509. Prediction of composite microstructure stress-strain curves using convolutional neural networks - ScienceDirect
• Zhang, Z., Lee, J. H., & Gu, G. X. (2022). Extreme Mechanics Letters, 55, 101785. Rational design of piezoelectric metamaterials with tailored electro-momentum coupling - ScienceDirect

Dr. Yuanyue Liu is currently an assistant professor at the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Texas Materials Institute at the University of Texas at Austin. He received B.S. degree from University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) in 2008, and Ph.D. from Rice University in 2014, both in materials science. He did postdoc studies at National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and California Institute of Technology, and then joined UT in Fall 2017. His research focuses on developing and applying atomistic modeling methods for electronic and energy materials, with a particular interest in electronic transport and electrocatalysis.

• Kong, W., Zhu, J., Zhang, M., Liu, Y., & Hu, J. (2018). Microporous and Mesoporous Materials, 268, 260-267. Three-dimensional N- and S-codoped graphene hydrogel with in-plane pores for high performance supercapacitor - ScienceDirect
• Liu, G., Li, Z., Shi, J., Sun, K., Ji, Y., Wang, Z., ... & Hu, P. (2020). Applied Catalysis B: Environmental, 260, 118134. Black reduced porous SnO2 nanosheets for CO2 electroreduction with high formate selectivity and low overpotential - ScienceDirect
• Cheng, L., Zhang, C., & Liu, Y. (2021). Computational Materials Science, 194, 110468. Intrinsic charge carrier mobility of 2D semiconductors - ScienceDirect