The Department of Materials Science and Engineering at Penn State is an international leader in materials education and research. As a top-ranked program, the department thrives on a rich collaboration between faculty, staff, students, and researchers to promote a well-rounded academic experience and innovative research opportunities. Our department offers ABET accredited degree programs at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. View the information below to learn more.
Department head: John Mauro
Associate Head of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion: Enrique Gomez
Associate Head for Undergraduate Education: Amy Robinson
Associate Head for Graduate Education: Venkatraman Gopalan
Degrees offered: B.S., M.S., Ph.D., and minors
Website: https://matse.psu.edu
Over 230 students, faculty and staff from Penn State and other institutions of higher education attended this year's Institute for Computational and Data Sciences (ICDS) Symposium on Oct. 14 at University Park.
Kaylin Lamaute wants to create innovative and exciting materials that can change the world. The junior majoring in materials science and engineering at Penn State is off to a good start. Lamaute recently took first place in the student speaking competition at the Materials Science & Technology conference, held in Pittsburgh in October
Penn State researchers have refined an atom-scale model of how silicon carbide changes from a solid into vapor during crystal growth, work that could help manufacturers produce higher-quality material for advanced electronics while reducing costly trial-and-error experiments.
Twenty-five faculty, including Long-Qing Chen, earned one of two new awards from the Penn State Office of Executive Vice President and Provost. These awards are designed to recognize full-time faculty of any rank, tenure-line or non-tenure-line, whose accomplishments during the current year distinguish them as top performers within their units.
Jeffrey Elam, senior chemistry at Argonne National Laboratory, will give the lecture “Chemical vapor fictionization of battery materials” at 3:05 p.m. on Thursday, Nov. 5, in 10 Sparks Building at Penn State University Park. The event is part of the Penn State Department of Materials Science and Engineering’s (MatSE) 590 Seminar series. The talk is free and open to the public.
Yinming Shao, Downsbrough Early Career Professor of Physics at Penn State, will present “Confining light and matter in van der Waals quantum materials” at 3:05 p.m. on Thursday, Oct. 29, in 10 Sparks Building on the University Park campus.
Maziar Montazerian, assistant research professor of materials science and engineering at Penn State and managing director of the Center for Glass Research, received the Tadashi Kokubo Award at the American Ceramic Society (ACerS) annual meeting held Oct. 4-7, in conjunction with the Materials Science & Technology (MS&T) conference.
Penn State Professor Susan Trolier-McKinstry was named as a Distinguished Daughter of Pennsylvania. She is one of 10 inductees included in the class of 2026. She was recognized by Gov. Josh Shapiro and First Lady Lori Shapiro at the Distinguished Daughters of Pennsylvania’s annual luncheon held in the Governor's Residence in Harrisburg on Oct. 7.
Three Penn State undergraduate students majoring in material sciences and engineering were selected to participate in the Tohoku University STEM Research Internship Program, known as T-SRIP, located at Tohoku University in Japan. In this six-week program, students gained hands-on experience working in assigned labs based on their preferences.
Sneha Narra, associate professor of mechanical engineering at Carnegie Mellon University, will present “Multi-scale microstructure evolution and control in fusion-based metal additive manufacturing” at 3:05 p.m. on Thursday, Oct. 22, in 10 Sparks Building on the University Park campus.