Members

C. Cem Taşan

Thomas B. King Associate Professor of Metallurgy
B.Sc. M.Sc. METU/Turkey, 2005
Ph.D. Eindhoven University of Technology/Netherlands, 2010
Postdoc and group leader, Max-Planck-Institut für Eisenforschung/Germany, 2016

Cem started his academic journey in Ankara, in the beautiful campus of METU, moved to rainy Eindhoven for a Ph.D. degree on micro-mechanics of damage, and to classy Dusseldorf for more fun in alloy design. These days he is training to be a professional chess player, while spending his free time at MIT supervising a bunch of amazing researchers.

Kathy Simons

Administrative Assistant

Johanna M. Wilcox

Financial Coordinator

Hyunseok Oh

Postdoctoral Associate
B.Sc. PhD. Seoul National University/South Korea, 2018

Hyunseok has been working on developing new alloys. Hyunseok likes playing games. He also likes betting on the properties of new alloys.

Onur Güvenç

Postdoctoral Associate
B.Sc. METU/Turkey, 2002
M.Sc. PhD RWTH-Aachen/Germany, 2019

Onur is working on new alloys and processing routes for easier reuse, reform and remanufacture extending material’s lifecycle. In his spare time, he tries to figure out the best viewing order for Star Wars.

Michela Geri

Postdoctoral Associate
B.Sc. M.Sc. Energy Engineering, University di Bologna/Italy, 2010
Ph.D. Mechanical Engineering, MIT/USA, 2019

Michela is working on chemo-mechanics of solid state batteries and in-situ testing. She loves cooking (and eating), drinking tea and watching classic movies.

Prafull Pandey

Postdoctoral Associate
B.Tech. NIT Raipur/India, 2010
M.E., Ph.D. IISc Bangalore/India, 2019

Prafull works on the design of new superplastic-nano-phase toughened steels and resettable high entropy alloys. He likes running (long distance) and trekking.

Menglei Jiang

Postdoctoral Associate
B.Sc. Tsinghua University/China, 2015
M.Sc. Mechanical Engineering MIT/USA, 2018
Ph.D. Mechanical Engineering MIT/USA, 2022

Menglei is working on healable metal alloy design and trying to apply this metallic coating as a functional coating layer to detect and heal damages to increase materials lifetime.

Shaolou Wei

Postdoctoral Associate
B. Eng. Physical Metallurgy and Materials Science, Harbin Institute of Technology/China, 2017
Sc.D. Materials Science and Engineering MIT/USA, 2022

Shaolou is working on microstructural evolution and phase transformations for advanced complex concentrated alloys development. He enjoys swimming, reading, and listening to classical music in his spare time.

Jiyun Kang

Graduate Stduent
B.Sc. M.Sc. Pohang University of Science and Technology/South Korea, 2013

Jiyun has been very enthusiastic in investigating plasticity and damage mechanisms of titanium alloys under the different and complex strain paths. She travels regularly, and her favorite place these days is a reciprocal space.

Haoxue Yan

Graduate Student
B.Sc. in Materials Science and Engineering, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute/USA, 2017

Haoxue’s research focuses on understanding hydrogen-defect interactions by developing in-situ electron microscopy methods. She grew up in China but found multiple home-away-from-home within the United States. Haoxue enjoys playing board games, climbing fake rocks, and spinning on ice.

Gianluca Roscioli

Graduate Student
B.Sc. Politecnico di Milano/Italy, 2014
M.Sc. Double degree Politecnico di Milano & Politecnico di Torino/Italy, 2016

Gianluca has been building new setups to be used inside a Scanning Electron Microscope to uncover how metals wear down. His goal is to find the constitutive laws of this process and use them to design new wear-resistant alloys. Originally from Rome, Italy, Gianluca enjoys sailing and raising tropical fish in his 55 gallon aquarium.

Julian Rackwitz

Graduate Student
B.Sc. M.Sc. in Engineering Science, Technical University of Berlin/Germany, 2020

Julian works on novel approaches to characterize the damping and fatigue properties of alloys. His goal is to design a high-strength high-damping steel. He centers his day around coffee and loves exploring different cultures.”

Raima Mahmud

UROP

Raima is a third year majoring in Materials Science and Engineering. She is investigating how surface roughening can improve resistance to hydrogen embrittlement in 316 stainless steel. In her free time, she loves singing a cappella with the Chorallaries, trying (and attempting to recreate) new foods, and laughing at almost any joke.

Jasmine Yang

UROP

Jasmine is a senior undergraduate student majoring in materials science and engineering and minoring in earth, atmospheric, and planetary science. Combining her interest in structural materials and additive manufacturing, she is working on an in-situ hardness characterization technique to ensure layer-by-layer quality for metal 3D printing. When not in the lab, Jasmine enjoys cooking, video games, anime, and looking at cool rocks and stars.

Sergio Arenas

UROP

Sergio is a third year student majoring in Materials Science and Engineering and minoring in Math and Archeology. His current UROP research focuses on identifying and characterizing the fatigue properties of alloys, generally steel. In his free time outside of class and the lab, he enjoys engaging in simple hands-on projects, playing pickleball, mountain biking, and blacksmithing.

Lauryn Kortman

UROP

Lauryn is a second-year undergraduate student majoring in Materials Science and Engineering and minoring in Mechanical Engineering. Her UROP focuses on hydrogen mapping in steel. Outside of school, she loves baton twirling, hiking, and travelling.

Previous Members

Graduate Students

Jackie Cho

Ph.D. in Material Science and Engineering, 2021

Thesis: “Design of Superelastic Secondary Phase Toughened Alloys”

Current position: –

Tim Fountain

M.S. in Material Science and Engineering, 2021

Thesis: “The Effect of Co on the Response of Fe-Mn Alloys”

Current position: US Navy

Maria Ronchi

M.S. in Material Science and Engineering, 2021

Thesis: “Hydrogen-Induced Transformations in Metastable High Entropy Alloys”

Current position: Form Energy, Inc.

Benjamin Cameron

Ph.D. in Civil Engineering, 2021

Thesis: “Expanding the limits of in-situ mechanical tests using data analytics and continuum mechanics”

Current position: Postdoc, Material Science and Engineering, Georgia Tech

Dylan Hall

MEng. MIT/Imperial College Joint Program, 2020

Thesis: “The effect of surface condition on the susceptibility of Ti-6Al-4V to aqueous hydrogen embrittlement”

Current position: Alloyed/UK

Matej Repka

MEng. MIT/Imperial College Joint Program, 2020

Thesis: “Cutting edge research – corrosion effect on shaving blade degradation”

Current position: Imperial College

Rebecca Wang

MEng. MIT/Oxford Joint Program, 2018

Thesis: “Pop-in and op-out behaviour of superelastic TiNi nanoprecipitates”

Current position: Business Development Specialist at Jane Street

Postdoctoral Scholars

Jinwoo Kim

Topic: Microstructural change and mechanical behavior of materials in hydrogen environment

Current position: Senior Research Scientist, KIST

Mohadeseh Taheri-Mousavi

Topic: Hydrogen embrittlement, MD simulations, gradient structures

Current position: Postdoc, Mechanical Engineering, MIT

Atieh Moridi

Topic: Surface engineering, Additive manufacturing, Carbon nanomaterials.

Current position: Assistant Professor, Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Cornell University

Emeric Plancher

Topic: EBSD, ECCI, DIC, Crystal plasticity, multi-field mapping, in-situ micro-mechanical testing.

Current position: R&D Engineer at Constellium C-TEC/France

Visiting Scholars

Visiting Scientists

Isao Arai

Visiting Scientist
BSc. Tokyo Institute of Technology/Japan, 2007
MSc. University of Tokyo/Japan, 2009

Daixiu Wei

Visiting Researcher
Assistant professor, Tohoku University/Japan, 2016
PhD. Tohoku University/Japan, 2016 Topic: Cobalt alloys for biomedical applications.

Zhiyuan Liang

Visiting Researcher
Hong Kong University
PhD. The University of Hong Kong/China, 2016
Topic: Deformation mechanisms in advanced high strength steels, small-scale mechanics.

Zhiyong Liu

Visiting Researcher
Associate Professor, USTB/China, 2012
Topic: Corrosion initiation, nano scale corrosion-deformation co-play, EBSD, ECCI, TEM, APT.

Meimei Wang

Visiting Researcher
Max Plank Institute MPIE
PhD. Max-Planck Institut fur Eisenforschung/Germany, 2016
Topic: Metastable steel design, mechanically-induced martensitic transformation, calphad based modelling, EBSD, TEM.

Jiali Zhang

Visiting Researcher
Max Plank Institute MPIE
PhD. Max-Planck Institut fur Eisenforschung/Germany, 2016
Topic: Self-healing alloy design, cracks microstructure interactions, recrystallization, ECCI, EBSD, TEM.

Visiting Graduate Students

Gaoming Zhu

Visiting Graduate Student Shanghai Jiao Tong University/China B.S. and M.S. in Materials Science and Engineering, China University of Mining and Technology/ China, 2016

Decheng Kong

Visiting Graduate Student
University of Science and Technology Beijing/China
B.S. and M.S., University of Science and Technology Beijing/China 2017

Ikuho Nakahata

Visiting Graduate Student
Tokyo Institute of Technology/Japan
BE. Tokyo Institute of Technology/Japan 2018

Federico Lucchini

Visiting Graduate Student
Politecnico di Milano/Italy
BSc. Politecnico di Milano/Italy
Topic: SLM multi-material graded samples.

Riccardo Rossi

Politecnico di Milano/Italy
BSc. Politecnico di Milano/Italy
Topic: SLM multi-material graded samples.

Feng He

Visiting Graduate Student
City University of Hong Kong
BSc, MSc, Northwestern Polytechnical University/China, 2016
Topic: High entropy alloys, phase transformation, TEM.

Shao-Shi Rui

Visiting Graduate Student
BSc. University of Science and Technology Beijing/China, 2014
Topic: EBSD misorientation mapping, crystal plasticity characterization, metallic failure analysis, fatigue and creep.

Ke Qu

Visiting Graduate Student
Lanzhou University/China
BSc. Lanzhou University/China, 2013
Topic: Nanomanipulation and nanofabrication, nanowelding, in-situ SEM/TEM.

Tomoki Mizoguchi

Visiting Graduate Student
Kyushu University/Japan
BSc. Kyushu University/Japan, 2016
Topic: Fatigue crack propagation, In-situ SEM, Hydrogen embrittlement, EBSD, FIB.

Teachers

Stacy-Michelle Reid (Weybrant)

Research Experience for Teachers (RET) program at the MIT MRSEC
BSE Arizona State University, Construction, 1999
MEd Northeastern University, Boston, MA 2010
Chemistry & Environmental Science Teacher, Jeremiah E. Burke High School, Boston MA
Topic: Materials testing curriculum for high school students.