MSE Department Holds 43rd Annual Hilliard Symposium

On May 14, Northwestern’s Department of Materials Science and Engineering held the 43rd Annual John E. Hilliard Lecture and Symposium. The department’s annual capstone event included a keynote address, alumni award presentation, and student presentations. The day opened with a welcome from department chair Mark Hersam, Walter P. Murphy Professor of Materials Science and Engineering and (by courtesy) professor of electrical and computer engineering and of chemistry.

The symposium’s keynote address, “Materials Discovery through Computation, Experiment, and AI” was delivered by Muratahan Aykol (PhD ‘15), a member of the founding team at Periodic Labs, a San Francisco-based startup aiming to build an AI assistant that can accelerate scientific discoveries. Aykol, a former member of the lab of Professor Chris Wolverton, has focused his work on applying physics, chemistry, and machine learning to materials science challenges.

The symposium was preceded by the annual Materials Science and Engineering Awards Banquet, where Rick Schneider (PhD ‘89) received the Distinguished Career Achievement Award. Schneider currently leads a team of more than 200 technologists at Google, overseeing the integration of high-efficiency, ultra high-density microLED display technology into next-generation AI consumer products. This builds on his work as co-founder of Raxium, which was acquired by Google in 2022. Across a decades-long career, he has translated foundational materials research into scalable optoelectronic technologies, including pioneering contributions to VCSEL development at Sandia National Labs and HP Labs/Agilent and leadership roles at Infinera and Raxium.

He is known for leading multidisciplinary teams that connect fundamental science, device engineering, and manufacturing, and has co-authored more than 200 publications with over 11,000 citations.

Josh Kellar (PhD ‘09) accepted the Early Career Achievement Award. Kellar is a managing director and senior partner at Boston Consulting Group (BCG), where he also leads a network of more than 500 MDs and PhDs. His doctoral research at Northwestern in Hersam’s lab focused on nanomaterial characterization, including graphene, with applications he later extended as a postdoctoral fellow into oncology. At BCG, he applies that scientific foundation to healthcare innovation, advising clients on scientific, digital, and payment model strategies.

Along with Aykol, 14 graduate students delivered presentations of their work. They were:

• Maryam Al-buainain (advised by David Dunand): “Hydrogen Reduction Mechanism of Blended Oxides for Sustainable Stainless-Steel Production”
• Kelly Matuszewski (advised by Vinayak Dravid): “Critical Mineral Recovery from Water via Hybrid Capacitive Deionization”
• Alexander Kane (advised by Ryan Truby): “Bioinspired Iontronics from 3D Printed Polymerizable Ionic Liquids”
• Maryam Khalaj (advised by Mark Hersam): “Turbulent-Flow Wet Jet Milling: A Green, Scalable Route to Optoelectronic-Grade MoS2 Production for Printed Electronics”
• Yen-Wen Huang (advised by John Torkelson): Upcycling Mixed Plastic Waste into Covalent Adaptable Networks (CANs) by Resonance-Stabilized, Radical-Based Reactive Processing”
• Simona Fine (advised by Cecile Chazot): “Light-Responsive Structural Colors in Cellulose-Based Liquid Crystals”
• Shadden Zaki (advised by Samuel Stupp): “Deep Eutectic Solvents Enhance Function in Supramolecular Biomaterials”
• Nicholas Pogharian (advised by Monica Olvera de la Cruz): “Artificial Ionic Synapses for Neuromorphic Computing”
• Sofia Aman (advised by Nathan Gianneschi): “Catalytic Porous Metallized Melanin for the Remediation of Organophosphorus Agents”
• Alexander Evenchik (advised by Ryan Truby): “Autonomous Co-design and Fabrication of Bioinspired, Multistimuli Responsive Material Systems”
• Graham Pritchard (advised by James Rondinelli): “Materials Origin of Superconducting Qubit Decoherence Channels”
• Kayna Mendoza Trujillo (advised by Charudatta Phatak): “Effect of Thermal Treatment on Magnetic Behavior of van der Waals Fe5-xGeTe2”
• Paty Meza (advised by Vinayak Dravid): “Uranium Capture in Layered Metal Sulfides: Insights into the Ion-Exchange Mechanism”
• Jacob Pietryga (advised by Chad Mirkin): “Machine Learning and Microscopy: Investigating Colloidal Crystal Growth Pathways with Segmentation and Classification”

Evenchik, Pogharian, and Fine won first-, second- and third-place, respectively.