This Research Interest Group (RIG) organizes structured workshops and mentorship to students, postdocs and new faculty who can incorporate advanced EM and AI in their own research. WE also have identified key leads in each department (MAE, MSE, BME, ChE, ECE, CS, SOM) serve as local ambassadors, encouraging faculty and trainees to attend events and explore collaborative avenues.
Lead Organizers
Tengteng (Toni) Tang
Dr. Tang's research program centers on the structure-mechanics relationships of hierarchical biological materials and their clinical and biomedical applications. Many biological tissues, such as our own skeleton, perform a diverse range of functions with remarkable mechanical properties. These exceptional properties arise from the functional
Kory Burns
Kory Burns is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering starting Summer 2024. Kory obtained a B.S. in Chemistry from Valdosta State University, an M.S. in Materials Science and Engineering, and a Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering (Nuclear Engineering Program).
Arthur W. Lichtenberger
Dr. Lichtenberger is a Research Professor at UVA and the NRAO Director of the UVA Microfabrication Laboratories. He has built an internationally recognized research program in superconducting materials, devices, circuits and packaging for ultra-sensitive single pixel and and array THz detectors.
CO-ORGANIZERS
W. Streit Cunningham
Streit is a UVA Rising Scholar Research Scientist who will be an Assistant Professor in MSE, effective July 25, 2025.
Helge Heinrich
Dr. Helge Heinrich joined the NMCF as the Principal Scientist for High-resolution Transmission Electron Microscopy, with expertise in focused ion beam sample preparation and cross sectional electron microscopy (FIB-SEM) from the University of Central Florida.
Sean R. Agnew
Our research is focused primarily on metals analysis, including magnesium alloy formability, intermetallic behaviors, and aluminum alloy fatigue.
Ji Ma
Ji Ma's research explores using additive manufacturing to create materials with novel properties and incorporating these materials in designed geometry to produce functionally unique parts, focusing on the additive manufacturing of metallic alloys and control of solidification, porosity, residual stress, and micro-to-nano-scale microstructure.
Chen Chen
Chen Chen is an Assistant Professor in the Computer Science Department at the University of Virginia. Before that, she was a Research Assistant Professor at Biocomplexity Institute at UVA and a software engineer at Google.
Additional Faculty
Are these the 'key leads?"
Tom Fletcher
Miaomiao Zhang
Professor Zhang completed her PhD in computer science at the University of Utah. She was a postdoctoral associate in the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Scott T. Acton
Professor Acton’s laboratory at UVA is called VIVA - Virginia Image and Video Analysis. They specialize in biological image analysis problems. The research emphases of VIVA include machine learning for image and video analysis, AI for education, tracking, segmentation, and enhancement.
Kyle J. Lampe
Kyle Lampe is an Associate Professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering at the University of Virginia, and by courtesy, Biomedical Engineering and Neuroscience.
