Awards and Recognition

Lauren Stulgis, Swanson Director of Student Project Teams, and Nikhil Garg, assistant professor, have received a Community-Engaged Practice and Innovation Awards from the David M. Einhorn Center for Community Engagement. The awards highlight individuals who have developed community-engaged learning, leadership or research initiatives that create meaningful curricular and co-curricular opportunities for students.

Joel Brock, professor, will receive the Acta Materialia Inc. Hollomon Award for Materials and Society March 18 at The Minerals, Metals & Materials Society (TMS)annual meeting in San Diego. The Acta Materialia Inc. Hollomon Award recognizes leadership in understanding the interaction between materials technology and societal needs, or major contributions to materials technology with a significant societal impact.

Christopher Alabi, professor, has been elected the Fred H. Rhodes Professor of Chemical Engineering, effective February 1, 2026, succeeding Susan Daniel, who has assumed the title of Lisa L. Walker 1986 Distinguished Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering.

In recognition of his groundbreaking contributions to oxide electronics and quantum materials, Ankit Disa, assistant professor in the School of Applied and Engineering Physics, was awarded the prestigious Oxide Electronics Prize for Excellence in October, 2025. The honor is presented annually at the International Workshop on Oxide Electronics, the leading global forum for research on functional oxides.

Disa was cited “for the realization of novel electronic states in correlated oxides by static and dynamic atomic-scale engineering—especially for his discovery of non-equilibrium magnetism and ferroelectricity by resonant terahertz excitation.” The selection was made by a committee of internationally recognized scientists in the field. Disa’s nomination letter noted that throughout his career he has made “significant and wide-reaching contributions to the control of electronic properties in correlated oxides” and described him as “an innovative researcher and leader who will continue to shape the field of oxide electronics for years to come.”

Disa’s research has focused on manipulating the functional properties of quantum materials on the smallest length and time scales, particularly complex oxides. “These materials host some of the most intriguing phenomena in condensed matter physics, including high-temperature superconductivity, quantum magnetism, and multiferroic behavior,” Disa said.  “My early work utilized atomic scale synthesis of oxide heterostructures to optimize electronic transport properties. More recently, I have been interested in how to dynamically manipulate the properties of these materials by exciting them with ultrashort laser pulses.”

During his doctoral research, Disa pioneered atomic-scale synthesis techniques for complex oxide heterostructures using molecular beam epitaxy. His work on rare-earth nickelates led to the creation of “tri-color” superlattices, a powerful new platform for engineering electronic states in layered materials. These structures achieved record orbital polarizations and provided key insights into nickelate systems closely related to cuprate superconductors.  He also designed two-dimensional metallicity, hidden magnetic order, and non-volatile switching behavior in nickelate-based systems. As a postdoctoral fellow, Disa expanded this approach by introducing ultrafast light pulses to manipulate crystal structures dynamically. Applying tailored terahertz laser sources to correlated oxides led to the realization of groundbreaking non-equilibrium phenomena, including metastable light-induced ferroelectricity in strontium titanate, ultrafast antiferromagnetic switching, and optically driven ferromagnetism in yttrium titanate at temperatures more than three times its equilibrium Curie temperature. These results showed how light could fundamentally transform the properties of materials.

At Cornell, Disa is pursuing a long-term vision for next-generation quantum oxide electronics based on non-equilibrium materials design, combining atomic-scale thin-film growth with targeted optical excitation to create materials whose electronic and magnetic behavior can be switched at ultrafast timescales. This approach has the potential to enable new classes devices that could operate far beyond the limits of conventional semiconductor technology.

Todd Cowen, professor, and Seth Schweitzer, research associate, have received a 2026 Cornell Atkinson-The Nature Conservancy (TNC) award for their work on Smart Flow Sensors For Smart Stormwater Management

Jessica Rush Leeker, professor of practice, won an honorable mention from the Center for Teaching Innovation for their 2025-26 Creative Teaching Awards.

Jamol Pender, associate professor, has been awarded the 2026-2027 Claytor-Gilmer Fellowship by the American Mathematical Society. The Claytor-Gilmer Fellowship was established by the AMS in 2021 to further excellence in mathematics research and to advance the participation and success of Black mathematicians in the research community.

Fengqi You, the Roxanne E. and Michael J. Zak Professor in Energy Systems Engineering, had his paper on machine learning pipelines for the design of solid-state electrolytes featured with art on the front cover of Materials Horizons.

Traci Nathans-Kelly, the Robert N. Noyce Director of the Engineering Communications Program, and Suzanne Lane, senior lecturer, are members of an IEEE Professional Communication Society working group that published a guide outlining the need, scope, and areas of work for the responsible integration of AI into professional communication, technical education, and practice.

Anastasia Bizyaeva, assistant professor, has received the 2025 George S. Axelby Outstanding Paper Award, given by the IEEE Control Systems Society. The Axelby award recognizes an outstanding paper in the IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control, for its originality, potential impact on the theoretical foundations of control, importance and practical significance in applications, and clarity.