Everything is made of something.
Making a more sustainable and healthier world starts with imagining new materials. Everything from renewable energy to medical devices to consumer electronics can be advanced by improving the materials they are made from.
Our Programs
Studying the properties of materials and their applications is ideal for those who are excited to work at the forefront of industries like electronics, energy, and healthcare.
Strategic Areas of Research
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![Eric Dufresne Research image of Droplets]()
Bioinspired Materials and Systems
Bioinspired composites, engineered protein films for adhesion, lubrication and sensing applications, molecular tools for in-vitro and in-vivo imaging, and biomaterials for tissue engineering and drug delivery.
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![Andrej Singer Research Image of bright spectrum of colors across a rectangle]()
Electronics and Photonics
Oxide semiconductors, 3D integration, materials beyond silicon, high K and low K dielectrics, plasmonics, spintronics and multiferroics.
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![Research Image from Julia Dshemuchadse's group]()
Energy Production and Storage
Photocatalysis, photovoltaics, thermoelectrics, phononics, batteries and supercapacitors.
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![Crosspolarized microscope image of cholesterol acetate crystals with added quarter waveplate]()
Green Technologies
We have targeted green composites and new systems for CO2 capture and conversion as areas of future growth.
News Highlights
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Four on faculty to receive DOE early-career grants
Four Cornell faculty members are among 99 researchers across the U.S. who have been awarded grants by the U.S. Department of Energy as part of its Office of Science Early Career Research Program.
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Largest gift in university history names Cornell David A. Duffield College of Engineering
More than $520 million in contributions from David A. Duffield ’62, MBA ’64 – including a new pledge of $371.5 million and a 2025 commitment of $100 million, combined with previous gifts – will establish the Cornell David A. Duffield College of Engineering.
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Supersonic tests defy a 70-year-old rule of metal strength
Smaller grains – the microscopic crystal regions within the material – normally make metal stronger, but when deformed at extreme speeds, this rule flips and metals with very small grains actually become softer, new Cornell research reveals.
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Cornell scientists discover cancer-fighting silica particles
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Cornell-developed particles supercharge cancer immunotherapy
A class of ultrasmall fluorescent core-shell silica nanoparticles developed at Cornell is showing an unexpected ability to rally the immune system against melanoma and dramatically improve the effectiveness of cancer immunotherapy.
Upcoming Events
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MSE Seminar: Christine D. Keating (Penn State)
Bioinspired reaction microenvironments based on aqueous phase coexistence Biological cells are highly organized with numerous subcellular compartments, many of which lack membranous boundaries. Membra…
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MSE Seminar: Ryan Poling-Skutvik (Rhode Island)
Programming nonlinear mechanics of soft materials Yielding is a phenomenon in which a material transitions from elastic deformation to viscous dissipation when subjected to large deformations. This tr…
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MSE Seminar: Erin Teich (Wellesley)
Discovery and design of emergent behavior in soft materials Nature organizes itself with often startling complexity at every length scale accessible to human inquiry, resulting in a wide range of mate…
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Engineering Undergraduate Research Poster Session
The Office of Inclusive Excellence and the Engineering Communications Program invite the Cornell Duffield Engineering community to celebrate undergraduate research at the annual Duffield Engineering U…
