2018

• Several Physics/Materials Science students and I attended Arkansas INBRE and a workshop on Grephene Synthesis by Dr. Hugh Churchill at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville. The undergrad students presented their research works. Congrats to Chris Klenke for winning 2nd place at the oral presentation competition in Physics. Chris worked together with Devon Romine and Daniel Fishbein and gave a talk titled" Molecular Dynamic Simulations to Study Tunnel Barrier Layer Formation in Ultra-Thin Film Alumina", as a part of a research project that was just recently funded by NSF through the Electronics, Photonics and Magnetic Devices  (EPMD) Program. Well done everyone and congrats Chris!

   

   

   

   

   

     

   

  (Photo Credit at the Award Ceremony: Denise Greathouse at Flikr)

   

   

  • The latest report on an average pay for a Materials Scientist by Payscale ~ $83k/yr. Please consider pursuing a graduate study in Materials Science at Missouri State!

   

   

   

  Materials Scientist (United States)

  MEDIAN: $83,514

  Currency: USD | Updated: 10 Feb 2019 | Individuals Reporting: 486

  

  Compare your salary. Get a FREE salary report »

   

   

  • Our graduate students & I attended the Materials Science & Technology Conference (MS&T18) held in Columbus OH along with our colleagues from UMKC and Ohio State, organizing a symposium on complex disordered solids and giving oral presentations highlighting the progress made in our NSF and DoE funded research projects.

   

   

   

  

  Left to right: Sabila Pinky (MSU), Ridwan Sakidja (MSU), Michelle Paquette (UMKC), Paul Rulis (UMKC), Jinwoo Hwang (OSU), Nirmal Baishnab (MSU) and Rajan Khadka (MSU).  * Missing in pic: Muztoba Rabbani (MSU).

   

   

   

   

   

  • Touring the electron microscopy facility at the Center for Electron Microscopy and Analysis@CEMAS_OSU. Huge thanks to our NSF's DMREF Grant collaborator Dr. Jinwoo Hwang from Department of Materials Science and Engineering at the Ohio State University for showing us the remarkable TITAN STEM & Glacios Cryo-TEM @thermofisher. Excited for more multi-university collaborative research between @OhioState @UMKansasCity & @MissouriState.

   

   

   

   

  

     

   

  • Daniel and Devon in action! Our CNAS college via CNAS NewsWatch features the newly funded NSF project:

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

  

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

  • Thanks to our Physics and Materials Science students that volunteered for the Weekend Backpack Program at Ozarks Food Harvest @ozksfoodharvest. Great work fellows! You were making your@MissouriState statement.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  *missing in the group pic.: Austin Bollinger (left) & Thomas Callaway (right).

  • Fall is back! Taking a group photo in front of our Robert W. Plaster football stadium. BEAR UP !!!

  
  

  • Presenting Immersive Virtual/Mixed Reality Apps for the Introductory Physics Education with my colleague Ms. Becky Baker at the 33rd Showcase on Teaching & Learning sponsored by the Faculty Center for Teaching and Learning. Huge thanks to our student Chris Robledo & the Meyer Librarystaff Ms. Jan Johnson with the cool HoloLens technology. #FCTLShowcase

  
  
  
  
   

  • Look forward to being a part of a new 3-year research project funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) to design and fabricate atomically thin tunnel barriers for high-performance tunnel junctions, a collaboration between The University of Kansas (KU) as the lead institute and Missouri State University. We will work closely with our colleagues at KU: Distinguished Prof. Judy Z. Wu(lead PI) and Prof. Siyuan Han. The NSF project is supported by the Electronics, Photonics and Magnetic Devices  (EPMD) Program from the Division of Electrical, Communications and Cyber Systems (ECCS).  

          
  
  From left to right: Dr. Judy Z. Wu, Dr. Siyuan Han and Dr. Ridwan Sakidja

           

   

  • Summer Group Meeting Series: Tyler McGilvry-James   showed the applications of MEAMFIT code to generate many-body potentials for molecular dynamics simulations at the group meeting. His work has been a part of our DOE (NETL) Cross-Cutting Research project, a collaboration between Missouri State University, University of Missouri-Kansas City and Missouri University Science and Technology at Rolla.

   

  

  • Summer Group Meeting Series: Greg Luckey demostrated the data mining applications to predict materials properties at the group meeting. His work has been a part of our DOE (NETL) Cross-Cutting Research project, a collaboration between Missouri State University, University of Missouri-Kansas City and Missouri University Science and Technology at Rolla.

   

  

  Summer Group Meeting Series: Austin Bollinger presented the results of his large-scale Molecular Dynamics (MD) Simulations on Deformation of Polycrystalline Ni-based Superalloys at the group meeting. His work has been a part of our DOE (NETL) Cross-Cutting Research project, a collaboration between Missouri State University, University of Missouri-Kansas City and Missouri University Science and Technology at Rolla.

   

  
  

  • Summer Group Meeting Series: Muztoba Rabbani presented updates on MD potential development in Ni-based Superalloys. His work has been a part of our DOE (NETL) Cross-Cutting Research project, a collaboration between Missouri State University, University of Missouri-Kansas City and Missouri University Science and Technology at Rolla.

   

    

  • Summer Group Meeting Series: Sabila Pinky presented the results of her large-scale Molecular Dynamics (MD) Simulations to predict the creep properties of Ni-based Superalloys at the group meeting. Her work has also been a part of our DOE (NETL) Cross-Cutting Research project.

     

   

  • Summer Group Meeting Series: Rajan Khadka summarized the results of his summer research in applying the Hybrid Reverse Monte-Carlo (HRMC) method toward complex B-C-H amorphous systems at the group meeting. His work has been supported by our NSF's DMREF project, a collaboration between MSU, UMKC and Ohio State. It is quite a challenge indeed, but persistence works!

   

   

   

   

   
  

  • Summer Group Meeting Series: Nirmal Baishnab showed the results of his summer research in performing Reactive MD and Ionic Bombardment Simulations to yield B-C-H amorphous systems at the group meeting. His work has been supported also by our NSF's DMREF project, a collaboration between MSU, UMKC and Ohio State.

   

  

  • In KC, having an all day discussion on the progress of our 3-year NETL research project on creep deformation modeling with our collaborators from UMKC and Missouri University S&T. Five members of our group: Sabila, Muztoba, Austin, Greg and Tyler presented their summer works at this meeting.

  

   

  • Having an "SGM" (Skype Group Meeting) : the thing we just have to do whenever our research group members are scattered in many locations hundreds of miles away from our home base in Springfield, MO on Wednesday at 4 pm :

  

  • At the first summer meeting of our NSF DMREF project at UMKC, a three-year research collaboration between UMKC, Ohio State and Missouri State:

  
  

  • Congratulations to these Materials Science graduates from our Dept. They are ready to 'lift-off'!

  

  Four recent Materials Science graduates of Missouri State ready to 'take-off'  

  PHOTO CREDIT: RABBANI MUZTOBA

  • SUMMER IS HERE!!! We took a number of group photos in front of  the John Q. Hammons Fountain located inside our campus mall.

   

   

  
  
  SAKIDJA GROUP PHOTO - SUMMER 2018
  
  From left to right: Dr. Sakidja, Nirmal Baishnab, Rajan Khadka, Chris Klenke, Sabila Kader Pinky, Brittany Porter, Eli Raithel, Austin Bollinger, . 
  Photo credit: Rabbani Muztoba.

  • Honored to be standing next to these extraordinary faculty members being a part of six recipients of 2018 Missouri State University Foundation Awards for Excellence in Teaching, Research and Service.  Photo credit: Our MSU President's twitter account @ClifSmart and the Office of the Provost.

   

   

  

  From left to right: Dr. Ridwan Sakidja (Research), Dr. Kyoungtae Kim (Research), Dr. Paul Durham (Service), Dr. James Parsons (Service), Dr. Amanda C. Brodeur (Teaching) and Ivy V. Yarckow-Brown (Teaching)

   

  

  At the acceptance of MSU Foundation Award for Research: MSU Provost Dr. Frank A. Einhellig (left) and MSU President Clif Smart (right)

  • Our Missouri State students (Taylor Kuttenkuler, Chad Brewer, Chis Klenke and Brittany Potter) presented their work on Virtual Reality (VR) Apps for Nanomaterials, at the 27^th Annual Spring Meeting of the NASA-Missouri Space Grant Consortium held at the Missouri University of Science and Technology at Rolla, MO on April 20-21, 2018. This is a collaboration between our group at PAMS dept.and the Multimedia Systems and Communications (MuSyC) Lab. founded by Dr. Razib Iqbal from Comp. Sci. dept. GREAT JOB EVERYONE!

   

   

   

   

  

  From left to right: Dr. Ridwan Sakidja, Chad Brewer, Taylor Kuttenkuler, Brittany Porter, Chris Klenke and Dr. Razib Iqbal

  • Our typical group meeting:

   
  SAKIDJA GROUP MEETING

  • Enjoying and very appreciative of the opportunity to have a lengthy discussion about hybrid nanostructures with Walter P. Murphy Materials Science Prof. Mark C. Hersam, the Director of Materials Science and Engineering Research Center at Northwestern University. Prof Hersam is an eminent materials scientist who has received numerous prestigious awards including the MacArthur Fellowship. He visited our University and was the invited guest speaker of our Materials Science seminar on March 1^st 2018 (Photo credit: Rabbani Muztoba). Check out an insightful interview of him by Prof. David Cornelison on STEM Spots (KSMU Radio) explaining his interdisciplinary works in nanoelectronics.

  

  Discussing 2D and heterogeneous nanomaterials  with Prof. Mark Hersam from Northwestern University

  • A new group photo (Spring 2018):

  
  
  SAKIDJA GROUP PHOTO - SPRING 2018

  From left to right: Dr. Sakidja, Austin Bollinger, Nirmal Baishnab, Chris Klenke, Rajan Khadka,Rabbani Muztoba & Sabila Kader Pinky (Not pictured: Jesse Underwood & Brittany Porter)

   

  • Recent postings about our research works:

  An international collaboration on MAX phases as new ODH catalysts:

  

   

  MAX PHASE - A NEW ODH CATALYST

  A recent DoE support for our efforts to predict mechanical properties of Superalloys: 

  

  HIGH-RESOLUTION SEM