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Materials Science and Engineering: Translating fundamental discoveries at the nanoscale into materials that benefit society.

The vast majority of the materials people encounter every day have been engineered to have specific properties that make the materials useful or valuable. As materials scientists and engineers, our goal is to understand how the arrangement of the materials' structures on a very fine scale translates into materials with properties that can benefit society. Our department continually strives to expand its core strengths and to work across disciplines to address complex challenges, from more efficient jet engines to new electronic materials that extend the limits of Moore's law. With recent faculty hires, we have reinforced our expertise in corrosion, high-temperature materials, surfaces and interface science, electronic materials, and computational materials science. And we are firmly established in such emerging fields as two-dimensional materials, soft and/or biological materials, and functional thermal material systems.

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Our Faculty

Thumbnail of Petra Reinke
Phone: ​434-924-7203

Petra Reinke

Professor of Materials Science and Engineering, Director Engineering Physics Program

Research Areas
  • Nanoelectronics and 2-D Materials
  • Corrosion and Electrochemical Sciences and Engineering
  • Surface and Interface Science and Engineering
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More About Our Department

Research Highlights

More About Us

  • 108

    Graduate students

  • 23

    Faculty members

  • $ 11 M

    In sponsored research for FY 2021