May 2023
On May 13, 2023, a cold, rainy, and windy Saturday morning, the VPD Research Group and NUANCE Center once again made their way to Northwestern's lakefront for the annual MSSA 5K.
MSSA’s annual 5K walk & run is a fundraiser benefiting the Pedersen-McCormick Boys & Girls Club of Chicago and Letters to a Pre-Scientist.
Always ready to support a good cause, staff, students, faculty and family members ran the course, then socialized over snacks and Gatorade post-event. The NUANCE/VPD team also took home the award for the most participants!
We are so happy each year to help sponsor the event and support MSSA!
May 2023
Reusable sponge can capture and recover critical metals and heavy-metal pollutants. Northwestern University engineers have developed a new sponge that can remove metals — including toxic heavy metals like lead and critical metals like cobalt — from contaminated water, leaving safe, drinkable water behind.
April 2023
Second-year graduate student in the VPD Group, Paty Meza, was awarded a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program (NSF GRFP) Fellowship.
April 2023
VPD members named Ryan Fellows due to their exceptional work as scholars.
April 2023
Postdoctoral research associate Kunmo Koo was honored for his recent work on ultra thin membranes for in situ TEM analysis by receiving the 2023 M&M Postdoctoral Scholar Award.
April 2023
Yukun Liu, VPD Group doctoral student in Material Science & Engineering, was selected for 2023 Microscopy & Microanalysis Student Scholar Award for his work titled “Probing the ‘Order’ in Complexity: Entropy-engineered Thermoelectric Materials.”
March 2023
Congratulations to Carolin Wahl, VPD Group PhD candidate in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering in the McCormick School of Engineering, on receiving the IPMI Graduate Student Award. Winners of this prestigious award are selected annually and present their work at the IPMI Annual International Conference.
March 2023
Matthew Cheng defended his thesis, "Defects and Interfaces in Quantum Systems: van der Waals Crystals and Superconducting Transmons" on March 16th, 2023.
March 2023
Stephanie Ribet defended her thesis, “The Hierarchy of Length Scales in Materials for Environmental Remediation: From Macroporous Sponges to Sub-Angstrom Electron Probes”, on March 09, 2023. Stephanie has been with the VPD Group since 2018.
In April, Stephanie will start as a Postdoctoral Scholar, National Center for Electron Microscopy, Molecular Foundry, Lawrence Berkeley Lab.
March 2023
Professor Vinayak Dravid presented the talk: "Waste Sponges and Foams for Environmental Remediation: Teaching 'Old' Materials 'New' Tricks" at the Institute for Sustainability and Energy at Northwestern University.
March 2023
Professor Dravid and his group have developed a highly porous smart sponge that selectively soaks up oil in water.
With an ability to absorb more than 30 times its weight in oil, the sponge could be used to inexpensively and efficiently clean up oil spills without harming marine life.
February 2023
Group alumnus Jingshan Du receives the FIP Distinguished Student Award of the American Physical Society.
January 2023
New members joined our group at the annual holiday celebration.
December 2022
Professor Dravid delivered the talk: "The Renaissance Era in Electron Microscopy: From Hybrid & In-Situ Microscopy to High Throughput & AI-enabled Discovery" at the Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research 2022 Winter School.
November 2022
Dravid Group member Stephanie Ribet gave a talk at MRS about her research on virtual detectors and beam modification in 4D-STEM, for which she was selected for a gold award (the highest level).
October 2022
We had a great turn out to celebrate National Nano Day and learn about all things NUANCE on Friday October 7, 2022!
September 2022
The VPD group is pleased to add 3 first-year doctoral students to the group: Alp Kulaksizoglu, Kelly Matuszewski, and Alfred Yan.
August 2022
Stephanie Wang, a rising sophomore at Case Western University working with the VPD group this summer through the SHyNE NNCI REU program, presented her work this week at the 2022 NNCI summit in Louisville, Kentucky. VPD Group student, Ben Shindel, was Stephanie's mentor in her exploration of heavy metals and tea.
July 2022
Stephanie Ribet was awarded 1 of 6 Student Presentation awards at the APS March meeting. This competition was sponsored by GIMS with around 50 participants at the graduate and undergraduate levels. Her talk "Enhancing Contrast of Symmetry Breaking Materials" presented the work of her and her co authors: Colin Ophus (National Center for Electron Microscopy at Lawrence Berkeley Lab), as well as Prof. Vinayak Dravid and VPD Group Scientific Officer Roberto do Reis.
June 2022
Chamille Lescott defended her thesis, Synthesis & Characterization of Self-assembled Polymer Nanocomposites, on June 13, 2022. Chamille has been with the VPD Group since 2017 and is co-advised by Evan A. Scott in BME, whose research focuses on synthesizing drug delivery devices for immunomodulation. In July, Chamille will start as an Assistant Professor of Instruction and First-Year Advisor in the McCormick School of Engineering at Northwestern University.
May 2022
Stephanie Ribet won 1st place in the Hilliard Symposium with her talk, “The Phosphate Elimination and Recovery Lightweight (PEARL Membrane): A Sustainable Environmental Remediation Approach”. She was joined in the symposium by fellow VPD Group member Chi Zhang with her presentation, “Low Thermal Conductivity in Heteroanionic Materials with Layers of Homoleptic Polyhedra”.
May 2022
Kelly Parker defended her dissertation entitled "Soft Microscopy: Enhancing Imaging for the High-Throughput Characterization of Soft Materials". Kelly has been with Northwestern University and the VPD Group since 2016 and focuses on advanced sample preparation and microscopy methods to image soft materials, particularly small biological molecules such as proteins and protein assemblies.
May 2022
Professor Vinayak P. Dravid presented his talk, "Teaching an 'Old' Dog 'New' Tricks" at the 2022 Momentum conference.
May 2022
Last Saturday May 14th presented a beautiful day along the lakefront of Northwestern’s Evanston campus and the perfect weather to hold the Materials Science Student Association’s annual 5K walk & run! Hosted by the MSSA, this annual event is a fundraiser benefiting the Pedersen-McCormick Boys & Girls Club of Chicago and Letters to a Pre-scientist; this year there were close 100 people participating with a great showing from the NUANCE Center and VPD group! Held “virtually” last year, it was refreshing to be able to come together in-person and run/walk for a great cause!
May 2022
A team of Northwestern University engineers created a coating that, when applied to sponges, traps pollutants found in water.
February 2022
Professor Vinayak P. Dravid had the honor to join a small group of invited global speakers, including Nobel laureates Ben Feringa and Andre Geim, at the Thirteenth Annual International Workshop on Advanced Materials (IWAM 2022), held in Ras Al Khaimah (RAK) of UAE.
Organized by Professor (Sir) Tony Cheetham, the conference included 3 days of lectures, poster sessions and discussions on the most recent advances in materials science.
Professor Dravid presented his talk: Teaching “Old” Materials “New” Tricks: Waste Sponges and Foams for Energy, Environment and Sustainability as the first keynote talk of the workshop.
The conference ended with palace banquet hosted by His Highness Sheikh Saud bin Saqr Al Qasimi, Member of the Supreme Council of UAE and Ruler of RAK.
January 2022
RMS has used Stephanie Ribet's Pearl-fect Membrane image for the April image of their digital calendar. "The Phosphate Elimination And Recovery Lightweight (PEARL) membrane, a reusable nanocomposite material, can be used to selectively sequester phosphate ions from polluted waters. From this false colored scanning electron microscope image, we can see the porous and hierarchical nature of the PEARL membrane, which leads to its effective remediation performance. (Hitachi S-3400 SEM)"
December 2021
"Highly sensitive and ultra-rapid antigen-based detection of SARS-CoV-2 using nanomechanical sensor platform" was listed among the most downloaded articles from Biosensors and Bioelectronics. Dr. Dilip Agarwal, Dr. Vikas Nandwana, Dr. GS Shekhawat, and Dr. Vinayak Dravid were among the primary authors for this research article.
November 2021
Second year graduate student Yukun Liu won the Hierarchical Materials Cluster Program (HMCP) Fellowship for 2021-22. This is a one quarter fellowship covering tuition, travel funds, and a portion of their stipends for the winter quarter.
November 2021
Second year graduate student Jack Hegarty won the Hierarchical Materials Cluster Program (HMCP) Fellowship for 2021-22. This is a one quarter fellowship covering tuition, travel funds, and a portion of their stipends for the winter quarter.
October 2021
Researchers at Northwestern University developed a reusable sponge with a magnetic coating that attracts oil and can absorb more than 30 times its own weight and can be reused more than 40 times without losing its effectiveness.
October 2021
New variants to the COVID-19 virus have challenged the capacity of existing testing methods to deliver fast and consistently accurate test results, as PCR tests must be sent to labs and can take days to be returned. Furthermore, rapid antigen alternatives struggle to match up to the gold standard. But to effectively slow the rate of infection, spaces like schools and hospitals need ways to accurately identify infected individuals within their first days of infection as they’re walking in the door.
Now, a novel antigen-based COVID-19 detection method developed in a Northwestern University laboratory demonstrated 100% accuracy in a blind test in five or fewer minutes from swab to signal.
September 2021
Jingshan Du, who served as a research assistant in the Mirkin Research Group and the VPD Group, was selected as the recipient of the ASM Carl Samans Excellence Award. This is the highest student award given by the ASM Chicago Regional Chapter and carries a $1500 prize.
The purpose of this award is to recognize and encourage outstanding graduate and undergraduate students to continue their pursuit of a career in materials science and metallurgical engineering.
The award is named in honor of Dr. Carl Samans, who was a member of ASM for 47 years, past president and trustee of ASM International, Assistant Director of Research for American Oil (Amoco), and faculty member of Lehigh University, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and Penn State University.
Du recently completed his Ph.D. at Northwestern and plans to join the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory as a postdoctoral research associate.
September 2021
The VPD Group is pleased to add 2 first-year doctoral students to the group: Paty Meza and Michael Barsoum.
July 2021
Stephanie Ribet won best student paper at the 2021 Membrane Technology conference (MTC21) hosted by the American Water Works Association (AWWA) and American Membrane Technology Association (AMTA). Stephanie shared VPD group research on the OHM sponge and PEARL membrane, nanocomposites used to sequester oil and phosphates from polluted waters, respectively. In addition to presenting on the remediation performance of these materials, she showed work done at the NUANCE center, where the team characterized the unusual architecture of these hybrid structures and their interactions with contaminants. For more information on the VPD group’s environmental research check out recent papers:
OHM sponge: https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.iecr.0c01493
PEARL membrane: https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2102583118
May 2021
Phosphate pollution in rivers, lakes and other waterways has reached dangerous levels, causing algae blooms that starve fish and aquatic plants of oxygen. Meanwhile, farmers worldwide are coming to terms with a dwindling reserve of phosphate fertilizers that feed half the world’s food supply.
May 2021
Kelly Parker was announced as the third place winner of this year's Hilliard Symposium with her presentation "Soft Microscopy: Advancing High-Throughput Characterization at Low-Voltage". Link to full story to come.
March 2021
Finding clean energy sources will be a key to mitigating climate change in the 21st century. Recent work by Northwestern Engineering could be part of the solution, and the result was inspired by a lowly lunchbox treat.
March 2021
More than a hundred attendees from around the world gathered virtually to celebrate International Women’s Day at the Women in Microscopy Conference. The event, co-hosted by Northwestern’s NUANCE Center, highlighted the work of female researchers, product specialists, and lab managers from universities, national labs, and microscope vendors. The VPD Group's own Stephanie Ribet was one of the two co-chairs that made this incredible event reality.
March 2021
"Stoicheia, a new technology startup that uses a nanotechnology-based approach to ultrahigh throughput materials discovery, today announced the first four members of its scientific advisory board.
Bringing expertise in nanotechnology, materials science and clean energy, Richard Crooks, Vinayak Dravid, Edward Sargent and Peidong Yang joined the Stoicheia team, effective February 17.
With the ability to perform millions of experiments simultaneously, Stoicheia’s technology can rapidly identify new materials with ideal properties for numerous applications, including for the energy, transportation, petrochemical and pharmaceutical industries." Click to read the full article
March 2021
"This month's Physical Sciences Student Spotlight is on Matthew Cheng.
Matt is a 4th year PhD student at Northwestern University in the group of Professor Vinayak Dravid. Matt graduated from University of Illinois Urban-Champaign (UIUC) in 2016 from the Department of Materials Science and Engineering.
Research Focus: Matt’s area of expertise is on characterizing 2D materials with an emphasis on high resolution electron microscopy. He works to establish structure-property relationships in 2D ferroic materials for next generation memory storage and quantum devices. This ties into larger efforts in the field of device development to miniaturize new technologies."
Read the full feature here: https://www.facebook.com/MSAStudentCouncil/posts/4149230435098777
March 2021
"And Kelly Parker is in March's Biological Sciences Student Spotlight.
Kelly is a fifth year PhD student at Northwestern University in Dr. Vinayak Dravid’s research lab. Her research involves characterizing soft and biological materials, specifically proteins, DNA, and other small biological molecules. Because these materials are both low-contrast and susceptible to beam damage when imaging, Kelly’s research focuses on improving contrast while avoiding high electron doses; this includes using low-voltages, particularly in scanning electron microscopes with transmission detection (STEM), for high-contrast, high-throughput imaging. Kelly’s work, thus, enhances the imaging tools required to answer questions related to the characterization of various biological materials."
Read the full feature here: https://www.facebook.com/MSAStudentCouncil/posts/4149234878431666
February 2021
The Microscopy Society of America Student Council and Northwestern University’s NUANCE Center are excited to present a half-day conference to highlight women in microscopy in honor of International Women’s Day.
Please join us for research talks and panels, featuring a keynote from Dr. Ilke Arslan, Director of the Center for Nanoscale Materials and the Nanoscience and Technology division at Argonne National Laboratory.
The talks will include a diverse range of topics including cryo-EM, magnetism, and quantum imaging. Plus, our career panels feature vendors, lab managers, and researchers from both academic and federal labs who can provide insight on working in microscopy.
We hope you can join us for our celebration of Women in Microscopy!
All are welcome and encourage to attend.
January 2021
A combination of novel techniques helped shed light on how the genome is constructed.
November 2020
A 2D-layered material may allow the development of superior infrared optical devices that are less expensive to produce
November 2020
Yea-Shine Lee and Carolin Wahl were selected to participate in the Hierarchical Materials Cluster (HMCP) for 2020-21. The Hierarchical Materials Cluster provides new opportunities for cross-disciplinary student research and training by integrating the strengths of the Materials Science and Engineering and Chemistry Departments in nanostructured materials research with the strengths of the Physics, Electrical Engineering, and Mechanical Engineering Departments in the measurement and modeling of physical properties
November 2020
Carolin wahl has been selected to participate in the Hierarchical Materials Cluster(HMCP). The Hierarchical Materials Cluster provides new opportunities for cross-disciplinary student research and training by integrating the strengths of the Materials Science and Engineering and Chemistry Departments in nanostructured materials research with the strengths of the Physics, Electrical Engineering, and Mechanical Engineering Departments in the measurement and modeling of physical properties.
October 2020
Songting Cai has been selected to be the winner of the prestigious Weertman Doctoral Fellowship for her outstanding scholarly achievements and promise.
October 2020
Jingshan Du has been chosen to receive the 2020 International Institute for Nanotechnology (IIN) Outstanding Research Award in recognition of his outstanding contributions in the field of nanotechnology research over the past year.
September 2020
The National Water Research Institute (NWRI) and the American Membrane Technology Association (AMTA) fellowship is awarded to support graduate student water research projects. Stephanie's research project is titled, “Multifunctional Nanocomposite (MNS) Membrane for Nutrient Recovery.”
Congratulations, Stephanie!
September 2020
Stephanie Ribet is a third-year graduate student in the Dravid Group, which investigates atomic and nanoscale phenomena in advanced materials.
September 2020
The VPD Group is pleased to add 2 first year doctoral students to the group: Yukun Liu and Jack Hegarty.
July 2020
Songting Cai was selected by the Robert R. McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science to receive this year’s fellowship.
May 2020
Several VPD Group Members have created a highly porous smart sponge that can separate oil from water!
May 2020
Akshay Murthy has been featured in the TGS Spotlight.
May 2020
Akshay Murthy wins first place in student speaking contest in the Hilliard Symposium!
April 2020
In light of the highly unusual circumstances, Dr. Akshay Murthy defended his thesis on April 10th via Zoom!
April 2020
Hee Joon Jung, PhD has co-authored a research paper published in the online Journal Science about efficient, stable silicon tandem cells enabled by anion-engineered wide-bandgap perovskites.
April 2020
This year, NUANCE is proud to announce we have three of our resident scholars and one of our collaborators receive this award!
February 2020
The article published in ACS Nano is titled "Direct Visualization of Electric-Field-Induced Structural Dynamics in Monolayer Transition Metal Dichalcogenides" and Akshay Murthy is the lead author.
January 2020
Songting Cai was selected by the PPG Fellowship committee to receive this year's award.
January 2020
Songting Cai is the first author of the article, which is titled "Discordant Nature of Cd in PbSe: Off-centering and Core-shell Nanoscale CdSe Precipitates Lead to High Thermoelectric Performance".
January 2020
Chi, Matt, and Kelly attended the High Resolution Electron Microscopy Winter School at ASU to gain theoretical and hands-on experience with a variety of electron microscopes and techniques.
December 2019
Good luck Qing!
December 2019
Akshay Murthy and Jennifer DiStefano recently presented their work at the Fall MRS meeting in Boston
November 2019
We are pleased to add Carolin, Ben, and Yea-Shine
October 2019
Good luck to Ben in his new role!
October 2019
Dr. Xiaomi Zhang, a VPD Group graduate, defended her thesis on October 4th. Congratulations, Dr. Zhang!
September 2019
Click here for the details on available positions and the group meeting schedule.
September 2019
The VPD Group will be hosting a picnic on Monday, October 2nd from 4-6 PM in the Tech AB Wing Atrium on the second floor. There will be free food, music, and games for all.
September 2019
NUANCE Center will host its annual NUANCE Fest and Open House on October 9, 2019
September 2019
A VPD student, Jingshan Du, won the Perkin Scholarship last week from the Society of Chemical Industry American in Philadelphia.
September 2019
Dr. Hee Joon Jung is first author in new Nano Letters publication titled, "Unconventional Defects in Quasi-one-Dimension KMn6Bi5"
August 2019
VPD Group graduate, Dr. Eve Hanson, stopped by to visit the new AB space last week.
August 2019
Prof. Dravid gave his invited talk at M&M 2019 titled, "'Hybrid' Microscopy: Multimodal, Correlative and Dynamic Characterization of Soft and Hybrid Structures."
August 2019
Three VPD students: Chi Zhang, Kelly Parker, and Songting Cai, won second place for their individual posters at the M&M 2019 Meeting. Congratulations!
August 2019
Akshay Murthy, VPD student, was named one of the 2019 M&M Student Scholars at the M&M 2019 Meeting.
August 2019
Prof. Dravid was recognized as a member of the Inaugural Class of MAS Fellows by the President of MAS at the M&M 2019 Meeting in Portland, OR.
July 2019
Prof. Jiaqing He, current professor at SUSTECH and long time and current collaborator, visited Prof. Dravid in his new space over the weekend.
July 2019
While on travels to the Berkeley area, Prof. Dravid ran into former VPD student, Dr. Jeff Cain and his family.
July 2019
Two VPD Group students, Jann Grovogui and Xiaomi Zhang, co-authored an article titled, "High Thermoelectric Performance in PbSe–NaSbSe2 Alloys from Valence Band Convergence and Low Thermal Conductivity" that was published in Advanced Energy Materials.
July 2019
Two VPD Group students, Chamille Lescott and Kelly Parker, were awarded the prestigious Ryan Fellowship. Congratulations Chamille and Kelly!
July 2019
Cesar Villa, a VPD Group student, brought his family to Prof. Dravid over the holiday weekend. It is always nice to meet the loved ones of our students!
July 2019
Commencement is bittersweet. We bid goodbye to some fantastic students setting out on the next adventure. It also allows us to connect with colleagues in the ResearchNU community.
June 2019
Prof. Dravid and student Jingshan Du were among authors of "Particle analogs of electrons in colloidal crystals" published in Science.
June 2019
Chinmay Menon, an undergraduate student in the VPD Group, won "Best Presentation" for his slide deck presentation at the Industrial Advisory Board summit
June 2019
Dr. Yue Li, a VPD Group and Backman Lab graduate, recently defended her thesis titled, "Multi-Scale ELectron Micrscopy Imaging Platform for Quantifying Genome Organization."
June 2019
Danny Kostelancik, a VPD Group undergraduate student, presented his senior project on June 12th.
June 2019
Jen DiStefano attended the "Science Outside the Lab" in Washington D.C. The lab is sponsored by NNCI and helps students contextualize how their study interacts with policy and society.
May 2019
Prof. Dravid welcomed visiting faculty from KAIST (Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology) during an MSE hosted NU-KAIST Workshop.
May 2019
Xiaomi Zhang won first prize at the Materials Science and Engineering John E. Hilliard Symposium last night.
May 2019
Prof. Dravid was elected Fellow of the Microanalysis Society, a part of the Inaugural Class of Fellows 2019.
May 2019
VPD Group participated in the Materials Science Student Association (MSSA) 5K race over the weekend.
May 2019
Prof. Dravid met the visiting parents of a VPD student Kelly Parker.
May 2019
Advanced Materials recently published an article co-authored by Prof. Vinayak Dravid and Dr. Gajendra Shekhawat as well as several other members of the VPD group and NUANCE titled, "Spatial Mapping of Hot‐Spots at Lateral Heterogeneities in Monolayer Transition Metal Dichalcogenides". Poya Yasaei and Akshay Murthy are first authors of this study, which examined the role interfaces within 2D play on heat dissipation properties within these systems.
May 2019
Akshay Murthy, a graduate student in the VPD group, presented his work at the Materials Research Society Spring meeting in Phoenix.
April 2019
Jingshan Du, a Dravid Research Group PhD Candidate, was awarded the IPMI Sabin Metal Ron Bleggi Student Award. He will be travelling to Reno, NV in June to give a short talk.
April 2019
Dravid Group wishes the best of luck to Karl Hujsak, former Dravid PhD candidate, at his new position!
April 2019
Prof. Dravid visited Mumbai, India to attend the beautiful wedding of Akash and Shloka Ambani.
April 2019
Prof. Dravid traveled to San Francisco at the end of March to give two talks at the Richmond Technology Center (Chevron), as well as make a visit to Stanford University.
April 2019
Undergraduate student Giuditta joins the Dravid Group as the newest member of the 2D materials subgroup
April 2019
Former Dravid Research Group graduate, Dr. Stanley Chou, paid a visit to the VPD Group last Monday, April 8th.
April 2019
Jennifer DiStefano, Dravid Group Ph.D. Candidate, was recently selected as a student writer for Duke SciPol.
April 2019
Jingshan Du, Dravid Group PhD candidate, attends ACS National Meeting in Orlando, FL.
March 2019
VPD Group was visited by Dr. Cary Hayner - Northwestern University alum, and Co-Founder and CTO of NanoGraf Corporation.
March 2019
Prof. Vinayak Dravid recently traveled to India to present at the 2019 ChemPhysMat conference, celebrate a colleague's birthday and attend a memorial event for the late BoT Shyam Kothari.
March 2019
NUANCE's Professor Vinayak P. Dravid, was co-author on a study on understanding and predicting polyelemental, multiphasic nanoparticles which was published in Science's March 1 issue.
March 2019
Annelise Riles, Executive Director of the Roberta Buffett Institute for Global Studies at Northwestern University visited NUANCE and met with Professor Dravid on February 27, 2019.
March 2019
VPD Group member Jen DiStefano was awarded for her poster presentation at the American Association for the Advancement of Science's annual meeting.
February 2019
The VPD Group will be moving into a new facility in the A/B wing of the Tech Institute later this year. The group toured the facility, which is still under construction, in January.
January 2019
The Committee on Extraterrestrial Sample Analysis Facilities, of which NUANCE’s Center Director, Professor Vinayak P. Dravid is a committee member, released a new report on the future needs of extraterrestrial sample analysis facilities.
January 2019
Karl Hujsak successfully defended his thesis just before the holiday break.
January 2019
As 2018 came to a close, VPD Group said goodbye to two postdoctoral fellows, Poya Yasaei and Yuan Li.
December 2018
Qing Tu, a postdoc with VPD Group, presented his paper at the MRS fall meeting in Boston.
November 2018
Qing Tu gave a presentation at the American Vacuum Society's 65th international symposium.
October 2018
VPD Group's Jen DiStefano and Kelly Parker attended the 2018 Society for Women in Engineering Conference in Minneapolis earlier this month.
October 2018
VPD Group's Fernando Castro successfully defended his thesis Monday.
October 2018
Professor Vinayak Dravid was invited to be a keynote speaker at the 2018 International Workshop on Materials Genomics at Shanghai University.
September 2018
The VPD Group will be hosting a picnic on Monday, October 1st from 4-6 PM in the Cook Hall Atrium. There will be free food, music, and games for all.
September 2018
Roberto dos Reis has joined VPD Group as its new Scientific Officer.
September 2018
Click here for the details on available positions and the group meeting schedule.
August 2018
Several members of VPD Group recently visited and exchanged research presentations with members of Jiwoong Park's group at the University of Chicago.
August 2018
A postdoctoral research associate position is immediately available at Northwestern University in the
area of “Cryo Electron Microscopy” of proteins, related biomolecular structures, complexes and their
conformational dynamics under external stimuli.
August 2018
VPD Group Ph.D. candidate Jingshan Du spent the summer contributing to the future of nanoscience research by mentoring an undergraduate researcher.
July 2018
Some of VPD Group's youngest members visited the lab recently.
July 2018
An article by multiple members of VPD Group was recently published in "Chemistry of Materials."
July 2018
VPD Group has a tiny new addition: member Abha Singh's daughter Aahana, who was born on Sunday!
June 2018
Northwestern University’s commencement celebrations took place on Friday. VPD Group had two graduates in the Class of 2018: Eve Hanson and Ben Myers.
June 2018
Tiffany Zheng, an undergraduate senior mentored by VPD Group member Vikas Nandwana, has been selected to graduate with honors.
June 2018
VPD Group members Soo-Ryoon Ryoo and Abha Singh will each be leaving Northwestern to start new positions.
June 2018
Professor Vinayak Dravid recently visited the factory of microscope manufacturer JEOL in Japan.
June 2018
Kelly Parker, a second year PhD student in the VPD group, was awarded the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program (NSF GRFP) fellowship.
June 2018
Dr. Jeff Cain, formerly a PhD student in the VPD group, recently had his work published in the Journal of Applied Physics titled Controlled synthesis of 2D MX2 (M = Mo, W; X = S, Se) heterostructures and alloys.
May 2018
Dr. Vikas Nandwana, a postdoc in VPD Group, won the Northwestern Information Technology department's visualization competition.
May 2018
This weekend members of Dravid group participated in the Materials Science Student Association 5K, which raised money for Junior Science Club. This is an organization that promotes science with middle school students.
March 2018
Postdoctoral Fellow Vikas Nandwana presented his research at the Ready Set Go program's "Seven Minutes of Science" symposium.
February 2018
Postdoctoral fellow Vikas Nandwana presented on behalf of VPD Group at the Masters of Biotechnology Program preceptor event.
February 2018
Abhalaxmi Singh and Soo-Ryoon Ryoo attended and gave oral presentations at the American Chemical Society's national meeting in Washington, D.C.
February 2018
Eve Hanson successfully defended her dissertation on Feb. 19.
February 2018
VPD Group postdoctoral fellow Vikas Nandwana presented his research at the Medical Scientist Training Program Blitz Talks.
January 2018
VPD Group had its annual picnic October 1 in Cook Hall.
November 2017
Fernando Castro, Jinsong Wu, Kai He, and Cesar Villa attended the Center for Electrochemical Energy Science (CEES) All-Hands Meeting where Fernando and Cesar presented posters.
November 2017
Professor Dravid and Gajendra Shekhawat developed a new imaging technique to peer inside living cells, the work was featured in McCormick and published in Science Advances.
November 2017
Jen's MoS2 nanostars image will be featured in the Royal Microscopy Society's 2018 Calendar and is a finalist for the MRS Science as Art competition.
November 2017
As part of the SPIE-MRSEC student seminar series, Karl presented his talk "Accelerating Materials Characterization with Machine Learning".
November 2017
We are pleased to add Matt Cheng, Chamille Lescott, and Chi Zhang.
October 2017
Several group members were in the Halloween spirit, check out their costumes here.
October 2017
Cesar attended to the 10th edition of the International Conference on Advanced Lithium Batteries for Automobile Applications (ABAA-10) in OakBrook, IL.
October 2017
Thanks to all those who came and helped out with the picnic! Click here to see photos.
October 2017
Fernando beat Cesar, Hee Joon, Jann, Karl, Xiaomi, and Will in the event at NUANCE Fest.
September 2017
Come for food, games, and music October 6th from 4-6 PM in the Cook Hall Atrium!
September 2017
Professor Dravid meets up with Mirkin group alumnus Matt Jones at the Liquid Phase Electron Microscopy Conference in Eindhoven, Netherlands.
September 2017
Click here for the details on available positions
September 2017
Qingyuan passes his defense! Congratulations Dr. Lin!
September 2017
Qingyuan's son Aiden visits Northwestern and meets Professor Dravid.
September 2017
Visiting scholar Yifan's stay at Northwestern comes to an end.
September 2017
Eve's battery commercialization paper was recently published online in MRS Energy and Sustainability and profiled online by McCormick and the Institute of Sustainable and Energy at Northwestern!
August 2017
Xiaomi and Jann attended the International Conference on Thermoelectrics in Pasadena, CA, and Xiaomi presented on her recent thermoelectric findings.
July 2017
Fernando participated in the EFRC-Hub-CMS PI meeting in Washington, DC. He gave a poster presentation and organized a social outing for other graduate students.
July 2017
Karl visits Germany for 2 weeks. He is hosted by Prof. Dr. Rafal E. Dunin-Borkowski.
May 2017
The paper is titled "High Throughput Synthesis of Multifunctional Oxide Nanostructures within Nanoreactors Defined by Beam Pen Lithography" and was a collaboration between the Dravid and Mirkin groups.
May 2017
Elizabeth Dickey, PhD, returns to accept award for distinguished career
May 2017
Qingyuan was awarded a 2017 Optics and Photonics Education Scholarship by SPIE.
April 2017
Congratulations to Xiaomi for passing her Qualifying Exam!
April 2017
Vikas recently attended the ACS Spring meeting held in San Francisco and gave 1 oral and two poster presentations.
April 2017
As part of the Science Outside the Laboratory Program, Jann will have an all expense paid trip to Washington, DC to meet with lawmakers and other people of influence regarding nanotechnology policy and legislation.
April 2017
Professor Dravid discusses thermoelectric materials and other energy policies with young Colorado School of Mines faculty, Eric Toberer.
March 2017
Vikas' image of a magnetic nanoflower was displayed as one of the cool and exciting images at the 2017 ABRF Annual Meeting in San Diego.
March 2017
Professor Dravid meets with Jeff, Kelcie, and Liam for the first time.
March 2017
Professor Dravid and Fernando attend the Advanced Rechargeable Batteries & allied Materials (ICARBM) Conference and the Indo-US Science and Technology Forum (IUSSTF)
February 2017
Vikas has recently published a new paper "High-Density Lipoprotein-like Magnetic Nanostructures (HDL-MNS): Theranostic Agents for Cardiovascular Disease" in Chemistry of Materials
February 2017
Vikas was selected and presented a 45 minute webinar on Magnetic Nanostrucutres as part of the Northwestern Cancer Center's Chemistry and Physical Sciences (CAPS) program
February 2017
Dr. Byungha Shin gives a Dravid Group special research talk on "Emerging Materials for PV and LED: CZTS and Hybrid Perovskites"
February 2017
Congratulations to Jeff and Kelcie Cain on their handsome, happy new addition!
January 2017
Fernando visited the Yacamán Group at the University of Texas at San Antonio to gain more experience with aberration-corrected Scanning Transmission Electron Microscopy (STEM)
January 2017
This fellowship will cover tuition, travel funds, and a portion of their stipends.
November 2016
Visiting scholar Heguang's stay at NU comes to an end
October 2016
We are pleased to add Kelly Parker, Will Kellogg, and Songting Cai
October 2016
As part of the Frontiers in Nanotechnology Seminar Series, Dr. Drummy presented on “Tomographic and In-situ characterization of soft matter”
September 2016
He had the opportunity to work as a visiting scientist with Dr. Stan Chou
September 2016
The award recognizes graduate students and postdoctoral associates for exceptional contributions to the nanotechnology field
September 2016
Come for food, games, and music!
September 2016
The competition is based on the submission of design-focused project reports that describe work that was performed as part of the capstone course or as a team project by undergraduate engineering students
September 2016
The fellowship will cover the remainder of his PhD tenure
September 2016
The award allowed him to complete a summer research project titled: Magnetic Nanostructure-Hydrogel Composites for 3D Printing Applications
September 2016
The talk was titled "Probing sodium insertion mechanism in graphene oxides by in situ TEM"
September 2016
The paper discusses the reactions of sodium (and lithium) with Se-nanotube in an effort to develop high capacity sodium-ion batteries for energy storage
September 2016
Click here for the details on available positions
August 2016
As part of the Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) program, 3 undergraduate students had the opportunity to work alongside VPD group members
July 2016
Several members of the VPD group and NUANCE, including Professor Dravid himself, shared their research through several poster and oral presentations at this year’s Microscopy and Microanalysis conference in Colombus, Ohio
July 2016
The award was given for his presentation at the 8th Annual Lurie Cancer Center Symposium
June 2016
The article is titled "Emerging opportunities in the two-dimensional chalcogenide systems and architecture"
June 2016
The tool offers the ability to rapidly test millions of different nanoparticles rapidly in order to determine the best particle for a particular application
June 2016
The images will be up for voting from June 6th to June 17th in the nationwide image contest
June 2016
The paper is titled "Engineered Theranostic Magnetic Nanostructures: Role of Composition and Surface Coating on Magnetic Resonance Imaging Contrast and Thermal Activation"
June 2016
The printer will be used to print hydrogel and MNS nanocomposites
May 2016
The paper is titled "Growth Mechanism of Transition Metal Dichalcogenide Monolayers: The Role of Self-Seeding Fullerene Nuclei"
April 2016
The MRS conference gave him an opportunity to give a poster presentation on his work
March 2016
This funding will help him research thermoelectric materials for waste heat energy capture and conversion
February 2016
The HMCP travel grant will allow him to present his work on "Li-Ion Conversion Reaction Battery Anodes with Metal-Metal Oxide Multilayer Architecture"
February 2016
The VPD group member spoke to students, teachers, and administrators at Vernon Hills High School
February 2016
VPD Group has open positions for undergrads. Click here for the details
February 2016
The two VPD group members received awards to assist in traveling to conferences, seminars, and meetings
January 2016
Jinsong Wu, Vinayak Dravid and others awarded funding for exploration of novel metal fluoride electrodes for high capacity lithium-ion batteries
January 2016
Jinsong Wu, Vinayak Dravid, Mark Hersam and Dr. Jeffrey Elam granted ISEN research project
December 2015
HELIX magazine recently published an article featuring Vikas' image of magnetic nanostructures
November 2015
Vikas' image selected as one of the top 12 images at NU
November 2015
Jeff presented his research at the Ryan Fellowship Quarterly Meeting
November 2015
Three Dravid group members presented their research at the 2015 Fall MRS meeting
November 2015
Xiaomi awarded Hierarchical Materials Cluster Program Graduate Fellowship
November 2015
Vikas received Katten Muchin Rosenman Travel Scholarship for the 2015 MRS Fall meeting in Boston
October 2015
VPD member presented in a video conference presentation
October 2015
VPD Group & NUANCE Members celebrated annual picnic
October 2015
VPD members received travel funds
October 2015
VPD alumnus in Boeing
September 2015
VPD group member will present in the Third Annual NUPF Symposium
September 2015
Three VPD group members are going to present on 2015 MRS Fall Meeting
September 2015
Great news from VPD alumnus Felix in NYC Mt. Sinai.
September 2015
VPD group member visits Japan
September 2015
4 VPD openings for 2015 new graduate students. Click here for the details
August 2015
VPD group member won Scientific Images Contest 2015
July 2015
Former VPD Group Member Accepted to Medical School
July 2015
VPD members named Ryan Fellows due to their exceptional promise as scholars
June 2015
Qingyuan's first author paper published on NanoLetters
June 2015
VPD group meets Prof. Sierin Lim of NTU
May 2015
VPD member awarded Fellowship in Leadership at Northwestern
April 2015
David Chae is the recipient of the Meister Award of 2015
April 2015
Eve Hanson received an Honorable Mention for the NSF fellowship
March 2015
VPD members traveled to Harvard to use the Hitachi HD-2700 STEM
March 2015
Opening for Distinguished Post-Doctoral Research Associate in “Scanning Probe Microscopy”
January 2015
VPD graduate student attend Winter School on High Resolution Electron Microscopy
January 2015
Dravid team's research highlighted on India Abroad
December 2014
Tsunenori Nomaguchi to return to Hitachi
December 2014
Professor Dravid co-authored in one article recently published on Nature Chemistry
December 2014
Debilitating Disease Set to Affect Millions of Americans Still Lacks Effective Diagnosis or Treatment
November 2014
Electron Microscopy Workshop will Enhance Dravid Group Research in Fundamental Materials Studies
November 2014
Three VPD graduate students awarded Hierarchical Materials Cluster Program Graduate Fellowship
November 2014
VPD group member Fengyuan gave birth to her baby
October 2014
Welcome Ran and Xiaomi!
September 2014
Our facile synthesis method for high quality ultrathin layers of 2D crystals has been published on ACSNano
September 2014
Openings in Multifunctional Oxides for Nanopatterning & Advanced Microscopy; Unconventional Atomically-Layered 2-D Structures and Architecture; Microscopy of Energy Materials in Batteries & Thermoelectrics; and “Soft Microscopy” for SPM and Microscopy of Nano-Bio-Hybrids.
September 2014
At least two postdoctoral positions are available related to synthesis of nanostructures and their applications to biomedicine. One position is focused on chemical/solution synthesis of nanostructures while the second position aims to explore biomedical applications of nanostructures.
August 2014
Fengyuan Shi presented in Microscopy and Microanalysis 2014 in Hartford, CT
July 2014
VPD Group members celebrate Professor Dravid's birthday
June 2014
Bin Liu proposed to his girlfriend during the hooding ceremony
June 2014
Three VPD graduate student get hooded
May 2014
Meetings Foster Collaboration in Transport Phenomena of GaN
May 2014
Prof. S.M. Shivaprasad from India visited Northwestern and gave talk at Materials Science & Engineering Department
May 2014
Yi-Kai defended his PhD dissertation:"Synthesis, Characterization and Properties of Functional Nanomaterials: Metal Oxides and Layered Materials"
May 2014
Professor Dravid talked about 'Strain Mediated Phenomena in Nanostructured Oxides and Chalcogenides'
April 2014
Dan Charles lead the Composites team for NU Formula SAE Car this year
April 2014
Thermoresponsive magnetic hydrogels based on poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) encapsulation of Fe3O4 magnetic nanostructures (MNS).
April 2014
Interdisciplinary Team Achieves ZT of 2.6 in New Nature Publication
April 2014
Prestigious fellowship to enable creative solutions in nanoscale imaging
March 2014
Week-long visit will explored new collaborations in the field of biophysics and diagnostics
March 2014
Institute will engender new breakthroughs in hard to treat disorders and diseases
February 2014
New Protochips Poseidon 500 in situ electrochemical cell for the Hitachi HT7700 S/TEM installed
February 2014
Shih-Han Lo has received an offer to join Intel Corp., Hillsboro, OR.
February 2014
Publications from VPD Group came out on high impact journals
February 2014
Eric W. Roth contributes to a recent article in Nature
February 2014
Shraddha Avasthy settles in as a Process Engineer
January 2014
Paper reveals synergic effects of Si and graphene
January 2014
Current Opinion in Solid State & Materials Science focuses on reviews of developing areas
December 2013
Shraddha and Chaoyi prepare for the next phase in their career
November 2013
VPD Group member receives fellowship from NU PSOC Center
November 2013
VPD Group Member Successfully Defends Dissertation
October 2013
Yi-Kai Huang is a recipient of the 2013 IIN Outstanding Research Award
October 2013
Students, staff and family enjoy a nice afternoon
September 2013
Annual Picnic scheduled for October 11th
September 2013
Open Positions for New PhD Graduate Students: Fall 2013
September 2013
Recent VPD Group PhD transitions into career with Intel Corporation
August 2013
Professors Dravid and Klein highlighted in August issue
August 2013
VPD Group members celebrate Professor Dravid's birthday
August 2013
Shraddha Avasthy worked with Prof. Mueller at ETH Zurich
July 2013
Professor Dravid delivered a plenary address to the 34th annual meeting of the Electron Microscope Society of India.
July 2013
Daniel Charles begins second internship with Boeing
June 2013
Conner Dykstra receives Chemistry of Life Processes Institute Summer Scholars Fellowship
June 2013
Alex Freedman's project utilized optical microscopy, AFM and Raman spectroscopy
June 2013
Professor Dravid opened the two-week conference on renewable energy
June 2013
Aiming Yan and Stan Chou attended the McCormick PhD Hooding Ceremony with Professor Dravid
June 2013
Shraddha Avasthy presents at H Foundation Basic Science Symposium
June 2013
Aiming Yan and Stan Shihyao Chou Celebrate with Family and Colleagues
May 2013
Felix Richter receives the Corbin Scholarship
April 2013
NU undergraduate, Jack Cavanaugh, was selected for the MRSEC Summer Research Experience for Undergraduates
April 2013
VPD doctoral student receives NSF and DoD fellowships
February 2013
Professor Dravid visits Hitachi High-Tech in Hitachinaka City, Japan
January 2013
Professor Vinayak Dravid and other NU faculty presented at JNCASR in India.
January 2013
Professor Roger Howe of Stanford University visits Professor Dravid and other NU faculty
January 2013
Professors Dravid and Mirkin delivered talks at AFOSR 2013 Natural Materials, Systems and Extremophiles Program Review
January 2013
Professor Dravid discusses developments in nanotechnology and biomedicine
November 2012
Felix Richter has worked in Professor Dravid's lab for over 3 years
November 2012
Come for food, games, and music!
October 2012
Daniel Charles works on carbon fiber composites during internship
October 2012
Hsin-Wei Wu will focus on characterizing thermoelectric materials
October 2012
VPD Group celebrates Annual Picnic 2012.
October 2012
Changqiang Chen and Shih-han attended the 2012 EFRC All-Hands Meeting at Michigan State University. Shih-han presented a poster. The title of her poster is "Understanding and Tailoring PbTe and PbSe -based Bulk Thermoelectric Materials by Advanced Electron Microscopy".
October 2012
Alex Freedman acted as lighting designer and master electrician for ETOPiA's (Engineering Transdisciplinary Outreach Project in the Arts) production of "The How and the Why" by Sarah Treem
October 2012
Alex Freedman participated in the "Finding Nano" program at TUM (Technische Universität München) in Munich
October 2012
Bin Liu has just defended his PhD thesis. Congratulations Bin!
September 2012
Congratulations on this outstanding achievement!
September 2012
Prof. Dravid's Nature article got published. Congratulations Prof. Dravid!
September 2012
NUANCE Center Introduction Video
September 2012
The photos and coverage of their visit is on McCormick web portal -
http://www.mccormick.northwestern.edu/news/articles/2012/09/india-collaborations.html
September 2012
Prof. Dravid visits Institute of Metal Research (Chinese Academy of Sciences) in Shenyang
September 2012
Aiming Yan presented a poster in the Inauguration of the NU-NIMS Center for Materials Innovation
September 2012
Stanley Chou returned from his visit to the Brinker lab at UNM/Sandia National Lab (SNL)
August 2012
On Thursday, August 16th, the HD2300 STEM has been moved to EPIC and QBIC’s shared Cryo-Bio-EM facility, located in Silverman Hall 0B540.
August 2012
VPD group attended Microscopy & Microanalysis 2012 Meeting held in Phoenix, AZ, July 29- August 2.
August 2012
Dan Charles is working for Boeing in the Next Generations Materials lab in St. Louis
August 2012
We celebrated Prof. Dravid's birthday with a surprise party!
August 2012
Felix Richter gave a presentation at Reserach Experience for Undergraduate Closing Symposium, August 15 2012
August 2012
Shraddha Avasthy delivered a talk at the 14th International Scanning Probe Microscopy Conference
August 2012
Jinsong Wu presented a poster in the M&M 2012 Meeting, held in Phoenix, AZ.
July 2012
Nasim Alem, an alumnus of Material Science and Engineering, has accepted a faculty position...
July 2012
VPD Lab Meeting Presentation for the Summer 2012
July 2012
Shraddha Avasthy received the terminal year fellowship for one quarter.
July 2012
Prof. Dravid and Prof. Chad Mirkin visited India
July 2012
Vinayak Dravid creates materials to more efficiently harness electricity from heat-generating systems
July 2012
Prof. Vinayak Dravid meets with Governor Quinn.
July 2012
Stanley S. Chou will conduct research at the laboratory of Prof. C. Jeff Brinker, Sandia National Laboratories as a part of Prof. Dravid’s NSF-CMMI project
July 2012
Congratulations on your new job!
June 2012
The Weinberg Conference and Travel Grant will fund Felix's travels to the American Chemical Society 244th National Meeting
June 2012
Summer of REU 2012:
Summer Wu, a senior at the Illinois Math and Science Academy, is working with Kirsten Viola this summer....
June 2012
Summer of REU 2012
June 2012
This summer, Dan Charles will be working for Boeing in the Next Generations Materials lab in St. Louis
June 2012
Congratulations to Shaleen Vasavada!
June 2012
Prof. Dravid attended NIBIB's Inaugural Meeting
May 2012
Congratulations on your terrific presentation and both awards!
May 2012
Wish you all the best in your future endeavours...
He will be joining as a Principal investigator at the level of Professor, Nanostructures and Nano Energy Materials Group Leader and a TEM lab director at Frontier Institute of Science and Technology (FIST), Xi’an Jiaotong University (XJTU), China
May 2012
Congratulations Felix!
May 2012
An image produced by NUANCE electron microscopy specialist, Eric Roth, was published in Nature.
May 2012
Aiming has got the Student Poster Award
April 2012
Undergraduates Alex Freedman and Daniel Charles will present posters at the 4th International Congress on Ceramics
March 2012
Felix Richter has been selected to participate...
February 2012
Yi-Kai Huang has been selected for a MRSEC Fellowship
February 2012
Prof. Dravid met with the Brazil Higher Education Mission: Midwest Delegation.
January 2012
Shih-Han Lo and Yi-Kai Huang attended 2012 Winter School
October 2011
Jiaqing He and Shih-Han Lo attended Energy Frontier Research Center, Revolutionary Materials
October 2011
Conner Dykstra was selected to participate in the Undergraduate Research Internship
September 2011
Luke Brewer is the 2011 recipient for the KJF Heinrich Award from the Microanalysis Society
September 2011
VPD Group & NUANCE Annual Picnic!
August 2011
Stan Chou attended ACS meeting and presented talks on two topics
August 2011
Manish K. Jaiswal a graduate student from Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay joined
August 2011
Yoshiki Yonamoto from Hitachi
August 2011
at the "IVth International Meeting on AFM in Life Sciences and Medicine",
August 2011
Professor Dravid hosted a contingent of faculty from Nanyang Technological University
July 2011
at the International Workshop on Advanced Electron Microscopy and Applications in Materials Science
July 2011
Professor Vinayak Dravid was elected as........
July 2011
The Northwestern University CEMRI proposal was recommended for support over a six-year period
June 2011
Marcel Grdinic, Callie DeMay and Leigha Ingham worked in our group
June 2011
Conner Dykstra, Felix Richter and Sara Styke started work in our group as an REU
June 2011
Congratulations Prof. Vinayak Dravid
May 2011
PhD students selected into this program for 2011 summer
May 2011
Congratulations Yi-Kai, Shih-Han, Aiming!
March 2011
Dr. Mrinmoy De and Dr. Datta Late presented posters at the Indo-US workshop at Northwestern University
October 2010
At the SPM & OPTICAL TWEEZERS Symposium – in Berlin - Mirela Mustata receives the 2nd place SPM poster award for her poster presentation.
September 2010
Welcome Dr. Dattatray Late
September 2010
Good Labs versus Bad Labs
September 2010
James Sbarboro will be attending the NU Graduate School of Weinberg this Fall for his Masters in Neurobiology and Physiology.
September 2010
Shih-Han Receives a Nanoscale Science & Engineering Center (NSEC) Fellowship!
August 2010
REU Presentations at the Closing Symposium
August 2010
Kathy Ku, Former Group Intern, Summers in Uganda
August 2010
August 20th group members and family and friends gathered for the annual picnic.
August 2010
REU Presentations at the Closing Symposium
August 2010
REU Presentations at the Closing Symposium
August 2010
Picnic Snapshot of Jiaqing He and Family
August 2010
REU Presentations at the Closing Symposium
August 2010
Kai Song and Family Attend the Annual Picnic!
August 2010
Stefan Bulic, a Libertyville High School student, interned in our Atomic -Nanoscale Characterization Experimental (NUANCE) facility.
July 2010
She will become dean of the Edward E. Whiticare Jr. College of Engineering on Jan. 1, 2011.
July 2010
Dr. Pati presents "Structures and Electronic Properties of DNA Systems."
June 2010
He is continuing his research as a Postdoctoral Fellow in the VPD Group
June 2010
I finished my junior year and am a NanoBio REU at Johns Hopkins for the summer. My project works on gold nanoparticles for drug delivery and using a novel compound to stabilize them and improve their functionality.
June 2010
Priyanka is a visiting predoctoral fellow from the Institute for Microbial Technology (IMTECH), India.
June 2010
First year Ph.D. student in Physics, J Gilberto Casillas-Garcia, joined our group under the Partnership for Research & Education of Materials (PREM)
June 2010
This presentation, given by Dan Herr, Director of Nanomanufacturing at the Semiconductor Research Corporation (SRC) was well attended.
June 2010
Kathy Ku's first year at Harvard sure has been a busy one!
June 2010
Only 4 undergraduates are selected each summer for the NSF-sponsored Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) program. Congratulations!
June 2010
Suguna is joining our group over the summer
June 2010
Dr. He becomes a Research Assistant Professor in the Chemistry Department after a unanimous vote!
May 2010
A warm welcome to the first students arriving for collaborative NU-JNCASR research.
May 2010
Kai Song, Ph.D.and Research Associate, is the proud father of William Song
May 2010
Dr. S. Sivaram is a polymer chemist, mentor and science manager of distinction.
May 2010
Shraddha Avasthy (graduate student) attended the CMOS Emerging Technologies Conference
May 2010
He joins our group as a visiting predoctoral fellow from IIT Kanpur, India
April 2010
Vinayak Dravid was named fellow of the Materials Research Society at the Spring Meeting in San Francisco.
April 2010
Vera returned to Singapore after working within our group for over a year.
April 2010
Shraddha Avasthy (graduate student) attended the 'PSOC Atomic Force Microscopy Workshop' at Arizona State University
April 2010
Stan (Shihyao Chou), a participant in the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Scholarship and Fellowship Program, has been granted another extension of his DHS award through the 2010-2011 academic year.
April 2010
Students voted for their favorite faculty members as part of balloting for ASG's
March 2010
Dhwanil, a Ph.D. student in Biomedical Engineering, joins our group members in collaborative research for the NU PS-OC (Physical Sciences-Onocology Center) grant.
March 2010
The $50,000 award will purchase the most powerful AFM ever built by Veeco
February 2010
Vinayak successfully completed The Kellogg Center for Biotechnology Management certificate program: "Management Skills for Innovative University Leaders."
February 2010
Dr. Donthu is currently with Exponent Consulting in Maryland where he uses his expertise in materials science and metallurgical engineering to conduct failure analysis investigations of engineering systems.
January 2010
Bin will be associated with Dr. Seungbum Hong of the Materials Science Division as part of Argonne's educational program extended to graduate students.
January 2010
Optical microscopy image of snowflake from the fractal gelation of complex sol including the precursors for Barium titanate and Cobalt ferrite. Courtesy of Professor Dravid.
January 2010
A recent PhD group graduate, Tao Sun, joins Argonne National Laboratory
November 2009
After successfully defending his thesis in November Soo-Hyun Tark graduates in December.
November 2009
Professor Dravid welcomed Onno Huckmann, the Consul General of the Federal Republic of Germany, Senator Axel Gedaschko, from the State Ministry for Economic and Labour Affairs of Hamburg
October 2009
At the 2009 Materials Science and Technology conference in Pittsburgh, PA, Mengchun presented "Effect of deposition temperature on surface morphology and magnetic properties in epitaxial CoFe2O4 thin films deposited by MOCVD"
September 2009
The Radiant Technologies Precision Premier II 100v Ferroelectric test system is being added to the VPD Group Lab!
September 2009
Felix's area of interest is nanostructure synthesis and their analysis in biological systems.
September 2009
The Nanoscale Science & Engineering Center for Integrated Nanopatterning and Detection Technologies provides graduate student fellowships each year to talented students!
September 2009
Katie will be working part time at the NUANCE Center assisting the Art Institute with particle size analysis and learning the ins and outs of electron microscopy.
September 2009
VPD Group Research Associate, Prasad Kelkar, temporarily moves to Ithaca, New York.
September 2009
We'll miss Arvind but luckily he will be visiting periodically to use our instruments in our NUANCE Center!
August 2009
At the Nanopatterning subgroup meeting on August 3rd, Dr. Fengwei Huo, from Professor Mirkin's group (NU) gave a talk, entitled "Polymer Pen Lithography".
August 2009
The Nanoscale Science and Engineering Center (NSEC) for Integrated Nanopatterning and Detection Technologies selects students and postdoctoral associates who have made exceptional contributions over the past year.
August 2009
VPD Group Picnic - A Farewell to Summer and REU's
August 2009
The W.M. Keck Foundation has approved a compelling proposal, Inorganic Signature of Life (ISL), by Tom O'Halloran, Teresa Woodruff and Vinayak P. Dravid, to understand the role of inorganic signal pathway (esp. Zn) during the earliest time of "life", i.e., the fertilization of female egg
August 2009
Dorota Rozkiewicz, PhD, IBNAM Research Professor and Ben Myers, EPIC Facility Manager got married on August 21st!
July 2009
Since joining the VPD group he has demonstrated the skills necessary to organize, implement and maintain our laboratory.
July 2009
Stan Chou's family celebrated the addition of Elisa on July 24th at 9:03pm.
July 2009
Chief Operating Officer of International Center for Materials Nanoarchitectonics, Fellow of the Institute for Materials Science, and Visiting Professor at the University of Tokyo and Waseda University, Dr. Bando visited and gave a talk on "In-Situ Transport Measurements of Novel Nanotubes under TEM."
July 2009
Not only is Stan accepted into the CCNE REU program but wins the Weinberg College Summer 2009 Research Grant to fund his project,
June 2009
As a visiting predoctoral scholar, Siddarth worked in the field of Nanoparticles synthesis and their surface functionalization.
June 2009
As pictured left to right:
June 2009
Dr. Tao Sun graduates in Cook Hall.
June 2009
A materials scientist at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory, he received the Young Investigator Outstanding Achievement Award
June 2009
Ben received his Master of Science in Mechanical Engineering and remains a member of the VPD Group.
June 2009
This summer he returned for just a bit more research, as a faculty sabbatical fellow.
June 2009
Kathy Ku, the VPD Group internship student from Maine Township High School East, finally decided! She plans to attend Harvard this fall.
May 2009
Dr. Bernd Kabius, a materials scientist, spoke to the VPD Group about the "Aberration Corrected Microscope."
May 2009
A 2006 graduate, Dr. Prabhumirashi stopped by to visit the VPD Group.
May 2009
Shraddha Avasthy and Arvind Srivastava presented at the GRC Nanolithography Review held at the University of Wisconsin.
April 2009
Congratulations to Tao for his successful defense for his PhD thesis
March 2009
Perhaps not the break from studies and research everyone would have liked but great satisfaction of a job well done!
March 2009
Shihyao Chou, a participant in the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Scholarship and Fellowship Program, has been awarded an extension of the Department of Homeland Security award
March 2009
Dr. Robert F. Klie, Nanoscale Physics Group, University of Illinois at Chicago speaks on the"Atomic-Scale Studies of Complex Oxide Interfaces using Aberration Corrected Z-Contrast Imaging and EELS."
February 2009
Congratulations Jonathan on being one of the 15 students to be selected for the CCNE REU summer program.
February 2009
Professor Dravid elected fellow of the Microscopy Society of America
February 2009
The Program Director of the Office of International Science and Engineering, John Tongas, and Shireen Yousef, visited to discuss the NSF Global Initiatives Program.
January 2009
Bin Liu, Mengchun Pan and Aiming Yan won scholarships to attend CHREM Winter School at Arizona State University!
January 2009
Professor Dravid presented keynote lecture at the 12th annual SANKEN symposium in Osaka, Japan.
January 2009
Professor Dravid participates as an International Speaker at the Vibrant Gujarat Summit in Science City, Ahmedabad, India.
November 2008
Scientist at Dow Chemical Company,
Visits the VPD Group for recruiting and collaborative discussions.
November 2008
The Richard and Barbara Silverman Hall for Molecular Therapeutics will will be home to more than a dozen research groups as well as several shared core facilities for the imaging and manipulation of biological molecules.
October 2008
Dr. Robert H. Grubbs, winner of the 2005 Nobel Prize in Chemistry visited campus.
October 2008
The VPD Group welcomed a group of professors and executives affiliated with Jinan University
September 2008
Arun Aneja, Ph.D., Chief Science & Technology Officer at Reliance Industries, Ltd., INDIA visits!
September 2008
We would like to welcome our three New Graduate students to the VPD group.
August 2008
Tao Sun was recently selected to receive the NSEC Outstanding Researcher award.
August 2008
Dr. Jiaqing He joins the VPD group as a research associate. Jiaqing comes to NU from Brookhaven National Lab.
August 2008
Ann Snyder won the McCormick STAR award for outstanding service.
July 2008
Soo Hyun and his wife Emily welcomed Brandon, a healthy boy born on July 31, 2008.
June 2008
We had quite a few graduates this year!
June 2008
Pictured: Top row: Vinayak Dravid, Siddartha Shah (IIT Bombay), Stan Gutiontov, Jonathan Lin
Bottom row: Rajeev Khattar (UIUC),Sok Yee Yew (NTU Singapore), Sara Rothwell (Carleton College), Saranya Sathananthan (UT Knoxville),
Not pictured: Ankit Gupta (UIUC) and Nishima Wangoo (IMTECH India)
June 2008
Professor C.N.R. Rao, president of JNCASR, Bangalore, India, received an honorary degree from NU at the commencement ceremony on June 20, 2008.
May 2008
After many trials and tribulations, the RF system has finally been installed in VPD lab. This unique capability will allow non-invasive thermal activation for multitude of our research programs, from Alzheimer's therapy to killing of pediatric brain tumor (targeted thermal activation!).
April 2008
Professor Dravid has won yet another award! This time the "Richard M. Fulrath" Award from the American Ceramics Society, for enhancing US-Japan bilateral scientific interactions.
April 2008
Atsushi Muto, visiting engineer from Hitachi High Technologies America completed his visit here at Northwestern and the NUANCE Center.
April 2008
After couple years of research internship in VPD group, Sam Nayak secured admission a number of institutions such as Stanford and CalTech/UCSD.
April 2008
Ambrose was accepted to the Statistics graduate program at Harvard University and Ken was accepted to the PhD program in Materials Science and Engineering at Northwestern University.
March 2008
Zixiao and Tao were asked by the McCormick marketing department to provide images of their work from the SEM and from the FIB.
March 2008
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has selected Stan to receive the coveted U.S. Department of Homeland Security Fellowship.
March 2008
Ben Murphy a BS/MS student in Mechanical Engineering has joined the VPD group to work with Stan Chou on MOSFET sensors.
March 2008
Zixiao has defended her PhD thesis and will be leaving us for the warmer climes of the Bay Area.
March 2008
Sujing has started working as a TEM postdoc with the EPIC facility of the NUANCE center.
February 2008
We have purchased with the help of NSEC and State of Illinois funds a Veeco bioscope.
January 2008
Congratulations to Arvind - VPD group Senior Research Associate on the birth of his son Tanav (wt. 7.5lb, 20inches) at 11.52pm on 26th of Jan.
December 2007
Dr. Hrushikesh Joshi arrived in December 2007 as our new post doc.
November 2007
Dr. RA Mashlekar, former director of CSIR, India, and a celebrated scientist/manager of Indian science and technology, visited Northwestern in November 2007.
November 2007
Suresh defended in November and left Evanston for the Washington DC belt-way area to make trouble at Exponent Technical Consulting.
October 2007
High ranking officials from Reliance Industries Limited (RIL), India, visited VPD and the NUANCE center, to discuss innovation in nanotechnology and models for characterization centers.
October 2007
Aslam's article is on the most cited list in Crystal Growth and Design from January – March 2007.
October 2007
Rachel Frey completed her senior thesis and graduated in December. Ambrose Lin has completed his senior thesis and is working with the VPD group for the next two quarters before he is on his way to graduate school.
October 2007
We would like to welcome our five new graduate students to the VPD group.
October 2007
Tao Sun has been awarded one of only three "Graduate Excellence in Materials Science (GEMS)" Diamond awards by the Basic Science Division of the American Ceramic Society.
October 2007
Aslam, Zixiao and Shuyou worked together to obtain an image of zinc oxide using an ESEM. The petals are ZnO single crystal clusters nucleated and grown from lithography-defined seeded ZnO areas, by means of a room temperature chemical process.
October 2007
Dr. Aslam and his family left the US for India after the postdoctoral stint at VPD group.
October 2007
Sam Nayak, our high school intern, was declared a semifinalist in the Intel Science Talent Search. Well done!!
September 2007
VPD group has achieved 100% batting average with 5 out of 5 recent major research proposals funded! These will help to boost our fall 2007 recruiting needs, substantiate our industrial collaborations, enhance our international outreach and uplift our research initiatives in constrained nano-bio structures and microscopy.
September 2007
Atsushi Muto from Hitachi High Technology America will be working with the VPD group and the NUANCE Center to enlighten us with innovative SEM techniques.
September 2007
Suresh is one of the five students chosen for the top-level named graduate student awards to be presented at the 2007 AVS International Conference, Seattle, Washington.
September 2007
Kanhu Chanan Barick, a graduate student from the Indian Institute for Technology Bombay (IITB) Mumbai is working with the VPD group for the next three months.
September 2007
NSEC REU Jesse Hall's paper from the work he did with Zixiao Pan was featured on the cover of the latest edition of Nanoscape.
August 2007
Arvind (second from right) won the coveted and competitive NSEC distinguished researcher award
August 2007
Aslam was recently hired as an Assistant Professor in the department of Physics at the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IITB) Mumbai.
August 2007
Professor Dravid will represent the US delegation at the joint meeting between University of Zululand and the International Center for Materials Research (ICMR), in July 2007.
July 2007
A beautiful baby girl - Ameena born on July 25, 2007 9:15 AM (July 2007) 20 inches 6 lbs 7 oz.
July 2007
Professor Dravid has been invited to serve on a special panel - Nanotechnology Beyond the Moore's Law - at the pan-IIT 2007 Global Conference to be held in Santa Clara, CA, July 2007.
July 2007
Presentation topic: In situ real-time investigation of kinetics of nucleation and growth of sol-gel derived functional oxide thin films
June 2007
As part of NSEC and MRSEC, we have the opportunity to host undergraduate students from around the country to learn more about our research and contribute in our lab. We have five students with us this summer.
June 2007
Zixiao's mom visited NU and her daughter and was given a top-quality NUANCE lab tour this June from the boss himself.
June 2007
Tao and Zixiao's application for beamtime was approved by DOE. GISAXS experiment will be performed at 8-ID-E beamline of Advanced Photon Source in Argonne National Laboratory.
June 2007
Nasim successfully defended her PhD in January 2007.
May 2007
VPD will present our group's nano-biomedical research on the "Academic Day" event at CMH and CMRC on April 6, 2007.
May 2007
Soo-Hyun Tark of Northwestern University captured the Student Poster Award at the CNM Users Meeting
May 2007
A new initiative by NU's office for research (OR) will have an inaugural event called CenterPiece Live
April 2007
Suresh won the Graduate Student Silver Award at MRS Spring 2007
April 2007
Suresh Donthu won first place in the "Science as Art" competition
March 2007
Tao and Zixiao's application for beamtime was approved by DOE. X-ray nanodiffraction experiment will be performed at 2-ID-D beamline of Advanced Photon Source in Argonne National Laboratory.
February 2007
Suresh Donthu and Zixiao Pan presented a poster related to VPD group technology development, which received the first place at the Applied Research Day organized by InNUvation
February 2007
VPD group's CCNE collaborator, Professor Jinwoo Cheon will visit NU and deliver a seminar on February 12, 2007.
February 2007
VPD will represent the US delegation at the US-India forum on Nanostructures
February 2007
Professor Dravid was invited to give a talk at the Eighteenth James L. Waters Annual Symposium "Scanning Probe Microscopies — STM, AFM, SNFUH" at the PITTCON 2007 conference at McCormick Place in Chicago, Illinois.
January 2007
Zixiao and Tao's application for nanofabrication facility was approved by Center for Nanoscale Materials in Argonne National Laboratory.
November 2006
Zixiao is a Graduate Student Silver Award winner at the Materials Research Society
November 2006
Zixiao also won the Everly Fellowship (Terminal Year Fellowship), Northwestern University
October 2006
Professor Dravid has been invited to participate in the Purdue Birck Nanotechnology Center workshop on SPM.
October 2006
Professor Dravid was one of a handful of US representatives at the opening of the Yonsei University's Center for Nano-Bio Structures in October 2006
October 2006
Professor Dravid will deliver an invited talk at the famed Intel Corporation's R&D center in Hillsboro, Oregon, related to Ultrasound Holography. Anchored by an unrestricted gift of $100,000 by Intel, we have developing the innovative non-destructive imaging technique based on ultrasound holography. He will also meet several of our VPD group alumni who are at this Intel site, including: Xiwei Lin, Kevin Johnson, Nazir Poonawala and Weida Qin.
October 2006
Suresh has won the 2006 IEEE Sensors Council President's award
September 2006
Professor Dravid will serve as the MC at the MoU signing ceremony between NU McCormick and IIT Bombay, in September 2006.
September 2006
Zixiao won Roland B. Snow Award, the American Ceramic Society annual conference, 2006!
September 2006
Professor Dravid has been appointed as the coordinator for McCormick global engagement initiatives and serves as an advisor to Dean Julio Ottino on all matters related to McCormick's international collaborative initiatives, spanning UG and graduate education, outreach and research activities.
August 2006
Professor Dravid will represent the US contingent at the Nano-2006 global conference in Bangalore, India, Aug. 21-24, 2006.
