Two PhD students earn major National Science Foundation fellowships
Hayes Brodsky and Austin Shoemaker have been recognized with 2026 National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program awards.Ìý
Both are PhD students in the Materials Science and Engineering Program at the Â鶹Ãâ·Ñ°æÏÂÔØ.
NSF GRFP recognizes and support outstanding grad students from across the country in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields who are pursuing research-based master’s or doctoral degrees.
Awardees receive a $37,000 annual stipend and cost of education allowance for the next three years as well as professional development opportunities.
Find out more about their research belowÌýÌý
Hayes Brodsky
1st Year PhD Student
I wrote my GRFP application on the use of X-ray diffraction (XRD) and machine learning to better understand high-power (i.e. fast charging/discharging) batteries. This technology has many important applications including, electric vehicles, fast response grid-balancing, and electric vertical take-off and landing aircraft. Battery charge speed is largely limited by the dynamics of ion transport into the battery anode, which is most commonly graphite. Synchrotron XRD is a popular tool used for investigating this process, but the large XRD datasets are often not fully utilized due to processing constraints. The goal of my proposed study is toÌýapply machine learning to efficiently analyze full XRD datasetsÌýand unlock deeperÌýunderstanding of the underlying physicsÌýthatÌýconstrain fast-charging batteries.ÌýIf successful, this machine learning technique for extracting weak signals from noisy XRD data could beÌýbroadly applied to many fields of crystallography.
Austin Shoemaker
1st Year PhD Student
Advisor: Seth Marder
Lab: Marder Group
My research will investigate how the molecular chemistry of self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) controls interfacial structure, energetics, and stability in metal halide perovskite (MHP) electronic devices. I will systematically compare phosphonic acid (PA) and alkoxysilane (AOS) anchoring groups using molecularly matched SAM pairs to isolate the effects of anchoring chemistry, backbone interactions, and terminal group functionality. Through this work, I seek to specifically establish the influence of SAM chemistry on packing order, dipole formation, and charge transport. These SAMs will be deposited on conducting device substrates and characterized using techniques including contact angle goniometry, X-ray and ultraviolet photoelectron spectroscopy, and atomic force microscopy to quantify surface coverage, bonding, morphology, and electronic structure. The most promising systems will then be integrated into perovskite solar cells and related devices, where electrical performance and stability will be evaluated under operational stressors such as light, heat, humidity, and bias. By correlating molecular-level design with device-scale performance, this work aims to establish design rules for engineering robust, high-performance interfaces in next-generation optoelectronic technologies.
