School of Engineering
Showing 151-160 of 265 Results
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Molly McFadden
Acting Assistant Professor, Materials Science and Engineering
BioMolly McFadden is an incoming assistant professor in the department of Materials Science and Engineering at Stanford University (beginning January 2027). The McFadden research group works at the interface of materials science and synthetic chemistry, using strain-promoted reactions to enable both new syntheses and new applications of soft materials. Her research combines transition-metal catalysis, polymer synthesis, and holistic materials characterization to link a polymer's primary structure and its mechanical response.
Plastics are subject to mechanical forces at every stage of their lives, from synthesis and processing to their use lifetime and ultimately to their recycling. These forces are usually treated as a liability: both extrusion and strain during use break chains, degrading the material. The McFadden group instead treats strain as a strategic and synthetic tool. Force acts across every length scale, impacting everything from the bulk properties and integrity of a material down to the electronic structure of a single bond. Further, the electronic impact of elongational strain accessible in polymer backbones remains far less understood than the contracted angular strain in small cyclic molecules known to enable unique reactivity. Force-responsive molecular switches, or mechanophores, let a material report on the stress it experiences, both as tools to map how stress propagates through soft materials and as the basis for stimuli-responsive materials with applications from smart plastics to biomedical sensing and therapeutics. The group uses catalytic and molecular approaches to understand these forces, to prevent the damage they cause, and ultimately to harness their energy to drive productive reactions to discover and synthesize new materials.
Prior to joining Stanford, Prof. McFadden was a Kathryn A. Day Miller Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of California, Berkeley, working with Prof. John Hartwig on selective transition-metal-catalyzed C–H functionalization of commodity polyolefins to yield more sustainable plastics. She received her B.S. in Biochemistry from Indiana University and her Ph.D. in Chemistry from Caltech, where she worked with Prof. Maxwell Robb on the design of molecular mechanophores for force-responsive polymeric materials. -
Paul McIntyre
Rick and Melinda Reed Professor, Professor of Photon Science and Senior Fellow at the Precourt Institute for Energy
BioMcIntyre's group performs research on nanostructured inorganic materials for applications in electronics, energy technologies and sensors. He is best known for his work on metal oxide/semiconductor interfaces, ultrathin dielectrics, defects in complex metal oxide thin films, and nanostructured Si-Ge single crystals. His research team synthesizes materials, characterizes their structures and compositions with a variety of advanced microscopies and spectroscopies, studies the passivation of their interfaces, and measures functional properties of devices.
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Luis Mejia
Affiliate, Materials Science and Engineering
BioLuis has been a technology transfer professional at Stanford for over 30 years. He is a volunteer for Climate Donor, Inc. a non-profit that helps fund climate change and species extinction mitigation projects. Prior to joining Stanford he worked on solar energy systems and energy management at Honeywell and Pacific Gas & Electric. He has a degree in Energy Systems Engineering from Arizona State University, is a Fellow of the Disruptor Foundation and is a recipient of an award for Excellence in Technology Transfer from the Department of Energy, Federal Laboratory Consortium.
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Nicholas Melosh
Professor of Materials Science and Engineering
BioThe Melosh group explores how to apply new methods from the semiconductor and self-assembly fields to important problems in biology, materials, and energy. We think about how to rationally design engineered interfaces to enhance communication with biological cells and tissues, or to improve energy conversion and materials synthesis. In particular, we are interested in seamlessly integrating inorganic structures together with biology for improved cell transfection and therapies, and designing new materials, often using diamondoid molecules as building blocks.
My group is very interested in how to design new inorganic structures that will seamless integrate with biological systems to address problems that are not feasible by other means. This involves both fundamental work such as to deeply understand how lipid membranes interact with inorganic surfaces, electrokinetic phenomena in biologically relevant solutions, and applying this knowledge into new device designs. Examples of this include “nanostraw” drug delivery platforms for direct delivery or extraction of material through the cell wall using a biomimetic gap-junction made using nanoscale semiconductor processing techniques. We also engineer materials and structures for neural interfaces and electronics pertinent to highly parallel data acquisition and recording. For instance, we have created inorganic electrodes that mimic the hydrophobic banding of natural transmembrane proteins, allowing them to ‘fuse’ into the cell wall, providing a tight electrical junction for solid-state patch clamping. In addition to significant efforts at engineering surfaces at the molecular level, we also work on ‘bridge’ projects that span between engineering and biological/clinical needs. My long history with nano- and microfabrication techniques and their interactions with biological constructs provide the skills necessary to fabricate and analyze new bio-electronic systems.
Research Interests:
Bio-inorganic Interface
Molecular materials at interfaces
Self-Assembly and Nucleation and Growth -
Kyle Iman Miller
Undergraduate, Materials Science and Engineering
BioI'm a 2024 graduate of South Eugene High School in Oregon, passionate about triathlons, wilderness exploration, and environmental sustainability.
