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UCLA MSE Newsletter - Spring/Summer 2026
Dear colleagues and friends,

Welcome to the Spring/Summer 2026 issue of the UCLA Materials Science and Engineering Newsletter. As another academic year ends, I am proud of all that our community has accomplished together. This issue celebrates the graduation of our outstanding students, recognizes the achievements of our faculty and alumni, and highlights exciting advances in research spanning semiconductors, quantum materials, soft robotics, energy storage, and many other areas. These accomplishments reflect the creativity, dedication, and collaborative spirit that define our department.

This year also brought moments of reflection. We remember our dear colleague Professor Ioanna Kakoulli, whose scholarship, mentorship, and kindness left a lasting impact on our community, and we celebrate Professor Qibing Pei's remarkable 21 years of service to UCLA as he begins an exciting new chapter at the University of Macau. Together with the launch of UCLA Samueli's Semiconductor Hub and many other milestones featured in this issue, these events remind us that our department continues to evolve while remaining grounded in the people who make it exceptional.

Thank you to our students, faculty, staff, alumni, and friends for your continued support of UCLA MSE. Our greatest strength has always been our people, and I am grateful to be part of this remarkable community. I also want to thank Professor Daniel Schwalbe-Koda for once again leading the preparation of this newsletter and for his dedication to sharing the stories and accomplishments of our department. I hope you enjoy this issue, and I wish you and your families a wonderful Summer.

Warm regards,

Prof. Yang Yang

Chair, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, UCLA

Summer News
Congratulations to our 2026 graduates!
Photo: Valerie Huang
Congratulations to our newly graduated materials engineers, masters, and PhDs! Our department graduated 27 PhDs, 58 MS, and 52 undergraduate in the 26-27 AY cycle (see all graduates in the Commencement Program). We wish you all the best in your next steps!
In memoriam: Ioanna Kakoulli, 57, materials conservation scientist, professor, and mentor
Photo: Todd Cheney
Professor Ioanna Kakoulli, a pioneering materials conservation scientist, passed away on January 1, 2026, at age 57. Her groundbreaking research on ancient artistic materials and technologies transformed how we understand cultural heritage. She mentored over 40 students, leaves an enduring legacy in materials science and conservation, and will be greatly missed by all of us. [read more] [Daily Bruin coverage]
Qibing Pei's retirement
Photos: Yang Yang
Prof. Qibing Pei retired after 21 years of dedicated service, and is taking up the position of Director of the Institute for Applied Physics and Materials Engineering at the University of Macau. Qibing will be missed and we wish him a happy retirement from UCLA! Prof. Pei sends a heartfelt message to the MSE community:

As my 21-year journey at UCLA comes to a formal close and I transition into my new role as Professor Emeritus, I want to express my deepest gratitude to everyone who made my time here unforgettable. I am profoundly grateful to my colleagues in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, our incredibly supportive staff, Chair Yang Yang, Dean Alissa Park, and Dean Vijay Dhir for their leadership and support over the years.

Serving as a member of this exceptional faculty has been an incredible privilege. I am especially grateful to the brilliant students, postdocs, and researchers whose energy, curiosity, and hard work in the classroom and the lab have been the true highlight of my academic career. I am immensely proud of what we have accomplished together, and I am deeply thankful for the camaraderie, collaborations, and shared dedication to research and education that defined my decades here.

While I am embarking on an exciting new professional chapter as the Director of the Institute of Applied Physics and Materials Engineering at the University of Macau, a piece of my academic heart will always remain at UCLA. I look forward to watching the department's continued growth and success.

Thank you all for being such wonderful colleagues, mentors, and friends. Please stay in touch, and I wish everyone and the department all the very best.

- Qibing Pei

Celebrating Awards
Xiaochun Li elected to the National Academy of Engineering
Photo: UCLA Samueli
MAE and MSE Professor Xiaochun Li was elected to the National Academy of Engineering for pioneering nanotechnology-enabled manufacturing processes for high-performance metals. His innovations have transformed aerospace, automotive, and electronics industries while generating over 30 patents used worldwide. [read more]
Richard Kaner receives 2026 Seaborg Medal
Chemistry and MSE Prof. Richard Kaner won the 2026 Glenn T. Seaborg Medal for lifetime contributions to chemistry and materials science. The award, honoring the AEC chairman's legacy, recognizes his pioneering work spanning graphene, superhard borides, and energy storage. [read more]
Photo: UCLA Chemistry & Biochemistry
Sarah Tolbert wins the UCLA-wide 2026 Distinguished Teaching Award
Photo: Cheylene Tanimoto / CNSI
Chemistry and MSE Prof. Sarah Tolbert received the Distinguished Teaching Award for Community-Engaged Teaching, honoring 25 years leading CNSI's Nanoscience Education Program. The award recognizes her work bringing nanoscience education to underserved Los Angeles students and teachers. [read more]
UCLA’s online engineering master’s program again ranked No. 1 by U.S. News
UCLA Samueli's online master's program ranked No. 1 by U.S. News for the fourth consecutive year. The program serves over 600 students annually across 17 specialized fields, including three areas master's in Materials Science & Engineering. Since 2007, more than 1,800 professionals have earned degrees while working full-time. [read more]
Photo: UCLA Samueli

Graduating Student Awards
Congratulations to all students who received awards this academic cycle!

Schoolwide Award
Engineering Achievement Award for Student Welfare Recipient

Andrew Richard Tuokkola, Master of Science, Winter 2026

Departmental Awards
Outstanding Doctor of Philosophy Degree Recipient
Jae Seung Hwang, Fall 2025

Outstanding Master of Science Degree Recipient

Nidhish Thiruthukkal Puthenveettil, Spring 2026

Outstanding Bachelor of Science Degree Recipient

Cyrus Mirsafian, Spring 2026

Departmental Scholars—Bachelor of Science, Master of Science

Lavina Wai Yu Chan, Spring 2026
Daehyun Linus Kim, Spring 2026
Sean King, Winter 2026
Joseph Cardoza O’Shea, Spring 2026

Research News
Charge-density waves enable 100x electric field amplification
Photo: Alex Balandin's Lab
In an article in Nature Electronics, MSE Prof. Alexander Balandin's team showed that tantalum trisulfide devices can amplify electric signals by 100-fold via collective charge-density-wave states. The nanoscale architecture can be adapted into existing design architectures, suggesting a viable path toward smaller, more energy-efficient semiconductor devices. [read more]
Clearing the nanoscale bottleneck holding back next-gen electronics
UCLA researchers solved a major barrier in perovskite electronics by engineering the metal-semiconductor interface to reduce contact resistance tenfold, bringing perovskite materials closer to practical next-generation electronic devices. The breakthrough was co-authored by MSE Prof. Yu Huang and was published in Small. [read more]
Ultra-tough isotropic hydrogels via chain-mobility engineering
MSE Prof. Ximin He's lab created isotropic hydrogels with record 424 MJ/m³ toughness and 2600% stretchability. The work, published in Advanced Materials, shows how protonation-regulated chain mobility enables uniform crosslinking, offering a generalizable design route for robust soft materials. [read more] [highlight]
Photo: Ximin He's Lab
Tumbleweed-inspired Twirlbot rolls toward light
Photo: Ximin He's Lab
MSE Prof. Ximin He's lab built a woven, light-responsive soft robot that achieves motorless phototaxis and locomotion. The approach, featured as the cover article in Science Advances can enable low-cost robotics for agriculture and environmental sensing. [read more] [cover] [highlight 1] [highlight 2]
A forgotten battery design from Thomas Edison
UCLA researchers revived Thomas Edison's nickel-iron battery design using protein templates to grow metal nanoclusters. The prototype recharged in seconds and survived over 12,000 charge cycles and mimicks how nature builds bone. The work was co-authored by Chemistry and MSE Prof. Richard Kaner, and published in Small. [read more]
Photo: Maher El-Kady/UCLA
Mineral sunscreen that reduces white cast
Photo: UCLA Health
UCLA researchers led by Chemistry and MSE Prof. Paul Weiss engineered tetrapod-shaped zinc oxide particles that reduce the white cast in mineral sunscreen while maintaining UV protection. This could significantly improve skin cancer prevention, especially among people with darker skin tones. [read more]
Damping electronic noise in quantum technologies
MSE Prof. Alex Balandin's team demonstrated that nanowires made from unconventional materials reduce electronic noise below conventional limits. Electrons and phonons move in concert, enabling quieter operation at room temperature and above. The breakthrough, published in Nature Communications, could improve quantum computing and advanced sensors. [read more]
Photo: Alex Balandin's Lab
UCLA Samueli Launches $125M Semiconductor Hub
Photo: UCLA Samueli
UCLA Samueli partnered with Broadcom, Applied Materials, GlobalFoundries, Meta, and Synopsys to launch a $125 million Semiconductor Hub. The five-year initiative advances AI-chip co-design, develops future electronic materials, and trains doctoral students via industry internships. MSE Prof. Alexander Balandin is one of the research thrust leads for the hub. [read more]
More News
The paints, coatings, and chemicals making the world a cooler place
Photo: Skycool Systems
MSE Prof. Aaswath Raman pioneered daytime radiative cooling, enabling passive heat dissipation without energy. Now startups commercialize his innovations in reflective coatings, reducing AC demand by up to 20%. The technology extends beyond roofs to cooling textiles and personal thermal management. [read more]
Seeing diffraction patterns
UCLA MSE students got hands-on time with the Titan TEM at CNSI for the third consecutive year, turning textbook concepts like reciprocal lattices, FFTs, and zone axes into live observations. MSE Prof. Sergey Prikhodko, who teaches the "Characterization of Materials: Electron Microscopy Laboratory" comments that "Watching diffraction patterns and atomic-resolution images appear in real time produced genuine 'whoa' moments, especially when students successfully aligned a crystal and everything clicked." [read more] [LinkedIn]
Image: Sergey Prikhodko
A UCLA (ECE/MSE) team including MSE Prof. Aaron Moment was selected for an ARPA-E ROCKS award of $2.5M. The research aims to develop THz spectroscopy for high throughput characterization of rare earth element ores, accelerate commercial mining, and reducing the discovery-to-production timeline. [read more]

MSE Prof. Md Shafayat Hossain's perspective was featured as the cover of Applied Physics Letters. [read more]

MSE PhD students HyeonJi Hong, Yuxuan Guo, and Kede Liu won an award at the EAP/Soft Robotics-in-Action Demonstration session of the SPIE Smart Structures + Nondestructive Evaluation Conference (Vancouver, Canada). The team placed 3rd out of the 12 for our demonstration of a tactile soft actuator system for a multi-line Braille display, featuring a variable stiffness polymer integrated with stretchable Joule heating electrodes.

MSE Undergraduate student Sungju Kang received a travel award from the Microscopy Society of America to present his research work on "Correlative EBSD–Nanoindentation for Orientation-Resolved Elastic Characterization of Polycrystals." Sungju will give an oral presentation at the upcoming Microscopy & Microanalysis (M&M) Conference.

UCLA MSE PhD alumnus, Dr. Henry A. Colorado L. (Univ. of Antioquia), won the 2026 SMD Distinguished Scientist/Engineer Award from TMS.

MRS Events and Updates
Students revive TEDxUCLA as a campuswide ‘festival of ideas’
Image: TEDxUCLA
UCLA students led by MSE student Cylin Wang revived TEDxUCLA after a two-year hiatus. The event featured ten speakers across disciplines including AI, friendship research, and urban cooling, aiming to spark intellectual connection and dialogue across campus perspectives. [read more]
MRS End-of-Year BBQ and Events
Photos: Valerie Huang
The MSE department’s traditional annual End-of-Year Barbeque Event bid farewell to our graduating Class of 2026 and celebrates the end of the academic year. Our MRS Student Chapter has been quite active, with well-deserved events from games, kayaking, and more. Thank you to all our MSE students for the engagement in the last year, and have a great Summer!
Opinion: In Defense of Reading: Why Engineers Need to Read
Illustration: Thoun Thant Nandi
Materials engineering student Thoun Thant Nandi writes about the importance of reading habits for engineers, fact-checking, and why does it matter to read well. [read more]
Opinion: It's ok, buddy
Materials engineering graduate Ashley Thai reflects on the challenges of defining success in education (and outside of it). [read more]
© 2026 UCLA Materials Science and Engineering. All rights reserved.
Newsletter editor: Prof. Daniel Schwalbe-Koda
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