Center for Structural and Functional Materials Research and Innovation
The mandate of the Center for Structural and Functional Materials Research and Innovation is to foster interaction between diverse disciplines and support materials-related activities involving metals, polymers, ceramics, and composites in an interdisciplinary fashion across the broad research community. The objective is to enable students, faculty, and industrial partners to link interdisciplinary expertise with shared facilities and trained staff to advance multidisciplinary research at the cutting edge of science and technology for the benefit of society. Interdisciplinary research nurtures the talent of students for scholarly and professional careers, such that they are exposed to a broad experience, not a byproduct of immersion in an intensive research experience, but with interdisciplinary thinking and practice. The Center seeks to integrate the four elements of the central paradigm of materials research: structure, process, property, and performance.
The interdisciplinary approach to research in structural and functional materials helps us to accomplish the following:
- underscore the synergistic benefit of acting as a interdisciplinary materials group,
- promote cross-fertilization of ideas, concepts and technical expertise, and
- utilize facilities and mobilize resources effectively and in a coordinated manner.
In summary, the Center provides a platform for our dedicated and diverse community of students and faculty to advance in many ways: through innovation and creativity; by nurturing friendship and partnership with community, alumni, and industry; and by reinforcing the internal structures that sustain us. Developing a mechanism of scientific exchange is of vital significance to the Center's future. Integrating education, research, and practice, combined with links to industry and other academic institutions, and incorporating the ambience of scholarly activity – these are the important elements of the Center with a distinctive, holistic identity.