Materials Science and Engineering Program

The Materials Science and Engineering (MSE) program brings together students and faculty with research interests and expertise in materials science and engineering from physics, chemistry, chemical engineering, electrical engineering, environmental engineering, geology and geophysics, mechanical engineering, and petroleum engineering. Materials science is a multidisciplinary field involving collaborations across many traditional academic programs and the MSE program provides a rich, collaborative research environment for graduate students, research scientists, and faculty to interact across departments.

Current strengths of the UW MSE Program include new materials synthesis (including 2D materials and composite materials), advanced laser materials processing and analytics, and computational methods for materials design. These strengths fall into four main areas of emphasis within the core members of the program: catalytic materials, biomaterials, nanomaterials, and optoelectronic materials.

Many of the core MSE members also collaborate with established centers of excellence on campus, including the School of Energy Resources, which is engaged in a new Carbon Engineering Initiative and has a well-developed Center for Photoconversion and Catalysis, with an emphasis on solar energy, fuel conversion, and fuel cell technologies, all of which overlap with MSE faculty research interests. MSE faculty are also participating in the newly formed Artificial Intelligence Materials Development Center at the University. In addition, several MSE members are supported by the NASA EPSCoR program as well as the NIH INBRE program, which sponsor research projects, graduate assistantships, and undergraduate research fellowships. The development of the MSE program has allowed for greater networking, collaboration, equipment sharing, and student opportunities in the area of materials science at the University of Wyoming.