Awards and Recognition

For their research on atomic-scale 3D imaging and perovskite materials, respectively, two graduate students from the Cornell Duffield College of Engineering have been awarded Gold Graduate Student Awards by the Materials Research Society.

These awards recognize exceptional graduate students whose academic achievements and materials research demonstrate a high level of excellence and distinction. The awards also highlight researchers who show strong promise for significant future contributions to the field.

Shake Karepetyan conducts research with David A. Muller, the Samuel B. Eckert Professor of Engineering in the School of Applied and Engineering Physics and co-director of the Cornell Center for Materials Research. Her research focuses on developing and applying multislice electron ptychography, a computational electron microscopy technique that enables three-dimensional imaging of materials and semiconductor devices with atomic-scale resolution. Her works helps provide new insight into how buried atomic-scale structure can influence device performance and reliability and aims to develop new and more accurate methods for three-dimensional atomic-scale imaging of materials, defects, interfaces and devices.

Shripathi Ramakrishnan works with Qiuming Yu, professor in the R.F. Smith School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, where he has made important contributions to perovskite solar cell technology. His work focuses on developing new material design principles to unlock new chemical spaces in 2D perovskites and incorporating them in perovskite heterostructures that combine different dimensionalities. These advances have enabled him to create perovskite solar cells that achieve power conversion efficiencies comparable to those of modern silicon solar cells. More importantly, his work has addressed one of the field’s most significant challenges: the long-term stability of perovskite solar cells under real-world operating conditions, including exposure to sunlight, heat and moisture.

Award recipients are selected from students in good standing in graduate programs who are presenting their research at the Materials Research Society meeting, making the honor highly competitive.

Fengqi You, the Roxanne E. and Michael J. Zak Professor in Energy Systems Engineering, has been selected as the winner of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers’ 2026 Professional Achievement Award for Innovations in Green Process Engineering. You, who was recognized for his achievements in life cycle engineering to advance credible and decision-relevant sustainability analysis, will receive his award at the AIChE’s Annual Meeting in Minneapolis in November.

Clifford Whitcomb, professor of practice, had 16 students from the M.Eng. health systems project team invited to present posters at the Cornell Center for Health Equity Symposium. Many of the students, working on the Enhancing Maternity Mental Health Support project, are taking the Weill Cornell Medicine health systems pathway courses and used what they learned to develop applications for the M.Eng. project deliverable.

Congratulations to Gigatonne Bio, an interdisciplinary team of graduate students from Duffield Engineering, the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Princeton, and Colombia that won the 2026 OpenAir Carbon Removal Challenge for their approach to covering mine waste into CO2 removal and critical metals with engineered bio-mining bacteria. Team members include Joseph Lee, Kyle Dayton, and Alia Almansoori, and the team was advised by professors Esteban Gazel and Buz Barstow.

Fengqi You, the Roxanne E. and Michael J. Zak Professor, had his research featured on the  May 2026 front cover of RSC Sustainability for the paper “Life Cycle Assessment of Seaweed-Based Biorefineries: Environmental Impacts, Hotspots, and Pathways for a Circular Bioeconomy.”

Alex Pizzola, assistant director of Engineering Advising, received the Individual Impact award at the Professional Staff Undergraduate Academic Advising Awards ceremony on May 7. The awards honors and recognizes professional staff academic advisors who make an investment in and offer transformative support to students as individuals in their academic journey.

Darrell Schlom, the Tisch University Professor, has been elected to the National Academy of Sciences for his research working with theorists and other experimentalists to make, measure and perfect new oxide materials with exciting properties relevant to electronics.

Jacob Mays, assistant professor, has been appointed to the Market Surveillance Committee of the California Independent System Operator, the latter of which manages the grid and wholesale electricity market for about 80% of California and parts of Nevada.

Charlle Sy, professor of practice, and Oliver Gao, the Howard Simpson Professor of Engineering, received a joint grant from the Cornell Atkinson Center for Sustainability and Environmental Defense Fund for the project “Electric Vehicle Battery Recycling.”

Jian-Xun Wang, associate professor, received a joint grant from the Cornell Atkinson Center for Sustainability and Environmental Defense Fund for the project “Improving urvan Air Quality.”