JSU-UCSB Partnership For Research and Education in Materials Science

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Non-technical Summary:The Jackson State University (JSU) Partnership in Research and Education for Materials (PREM) project with the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) Materials Research Science and Engineering Center (MRSEC), will provide opportunities for underrepresented minority (URM) participants to become next generation materials scientists through innovative research and education in emerging research areas via JSU-UCSB PREM. African-Americans represent 98 percent of the minority population in Mississippi and 37 percent of its citizens, giving it the highest concentration per capita of this minority group in the nation. Partnership will bring unique resources to address scientific issues of national and global priority through pioneering research and education in materials science. The JSU-UCSB PREM will develop a multi-institutional, interdisciplinary research team to solve daily life problems by creating innovative materials and using smart nanomaterials-based technology. The partnership will provide minority participants from JSU and other local Mississippi universities, community colleges, and K-12 schools the opportunity to acquire a comprehensive STEM education with components ranging from materials research experiences at UCSB or JSU to formal and informal lessons, conferences with world renowned scientists and nano-exhibitions. An anticipated far-reaching and lasting effect of the current PREM project is its impact on training and mentoring African American students in areas of research that have excellent long-term job prospects.Technical Summary:The research will focus on the development and application of new materials. JSU-UCSB PREM will provide intellectually stimulating research and educational experiences for underrepresented graduate and undergraduate students in the collaborative materials science projects by bringing together a group of interdisciplinary faculty members from JSU and UCSB. The proposed partnership will foster innovation by creating cognitive models, facilitation techniques and smart technologies through theory-experiment-coupled research and development of new materials, addressing societal and environmental concerns. Specifically, the focus will be on three research subprojects, characterized by cutting-edge world class research and a highly collaborative research environment: 1) Bio-inspired 3D Nanocomposites with Superior Mechanical Strength and Toughness, 2) Air Stable All-Inorganic Perovskites Based Optoelectronic Materials and 3) Transition Metal Dichalcogenides (TMDs) Based Mixed-Dimensional Heterostructures Materials. Research groups will be composed of JSU and UCSB faculty members who, with their students and postdoctoral associates, form a highly cohesive team of researchers able to investigate fundamental scientific questions and pathways to reach significant technological goals that can only be properly explored in a collaborative, multidisciplinary mode. The partnership will allow the development of JSU as a center of excellence in advanced 2D and 3D materials research while significantly impacting the diversity and educational and outreach activities at UCSB.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.