News

2024

January 2024

Prof. Greer was named the new Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Applied Physics!

2023

November 2023

Prof. Greer was awarded the 2024 SES A.C. Eringen Medal in recognition of sustained oustanding achievements in engineering science, and invited to speak at the 2024 SES annual meeting.

September 2023

Our very own Wenxin Zhang was featured by Caltech with Prof. Greer discussing our new work published in ACS Nano Letters last month "Technique for 3-D Printing Metals at the Nanoscale Reveals Surprise Benefit"

Cyrus Fiori passed his candidacy in Chemical Engineering. Congratulations Cyrus!

July 2023

Weiting Deng defended her PhD thesis in Medical Engineering. Congratulations Dr. Deng!

June 2023

Yingjin Wang passed her candidacy in Materials Science. Congratulations Yingjin!

May 2023

Congratulations to all our graduates at Caltech's 2023 Commencement! 2023 Commencement

From left to right: Seneca Velling, MS on the route to PhD (Materials Science); Dr. Amylynn Chen, PhD (Materials Science); Dr. Rebecca Gallivan, PhD (Materials Science); Dr. Andrew Friedman, PhD (Chemical Engineering); Prof. Julia R. Greer; Dr. Widi Moestopo, PhD (Mechanical Engineering); Nathan Fangyu Zou, BS (Chemical Engineering).

2023 Commencement 2023 Commencement 2023 Commencement

Andrew Friedman defended his PhD thesis in Chemical Engineering. Congratulations Dr. Andrew!

Wenyuan Chen passed his candidacy in Electrical Engineering. Congratulations Wen!

Angelina Yang placed 3rd in the Chemistry Category at the Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF) with her poster entitled "Synthesis and In-Depth Evaluation of Degradable Copolymers via Cyclic Ketene Acetal Incorporation." ISEF is the world's largest pre-college STEM competition and a program of the Society for Science. Congratulations Angelina!

ISEF poster

Prof. Greer gave the David P. Pope Distinguished Lecture at the University of Pennsylvania on "The Intellegentsia of Nano-Architected Hierarchical Materials"

February 2023

Prof. Greer gave a lecture for EcosySTEM Asia on How to Launch an Academic Career

2022

December 2022

Thomas Tran passed his candidacy in Materials Science!

Greer Group annual holiday party and gift exchange

November 2022

Prof. Julia Greer will be a plenary speaker on Advanced Materials: Design, Processing, Characterization, and Applications at the International Mechanical Engineering Congress & Exposition in Columbus, OH! Check out the details here

Greer Group annual retreat in Temecula, CA

October 2022

Drs. Max Saccone, Rebecca Gallivan, Kai Narita, and Daryl Yee published their work on Hydrogel Infusion Additive Manufacturing in Nature! Check out the publication here

Dr. Fernando Villafuerte was a contestant on Jeopardy! You can see highlights from his episode here

Wenxin Zhang and Seola Lee presented at SES 2022! This is Seola Lee's first time giving a talk at a conference in-person!

Kevin Nakahara passed his candidacy in Mechanical Engineering!

August 2022

Rebecca Gallivan was elected co-chair for the 2024 Gordon Research Conference for the Solid State Studies in Ceramics.

Congrats to Rebecca Gallivan for being awarded the best poster at the Solid State Studies in Ceramics Gordon Research Conference for her poster titled "On the Cusp of Continuum: Microstructural Origins of the Emergent Electromechanical Behavior in Nanocrystalline Nano-architected Zinc Oxide".

Congrats to Max Saccone for being awarded the best poster at the Additive Manufacturing of Soft Materials Gordon Research Conference for his poster titled "Additive manufacturing of micro-architected metals via hydrogel infusion"

July 2022

Congrats to Akash Dhawan for being accepted to the Caltech Biotechnology Leadership Pre-Doctoral Training Program!

Congrats to alum Dr. Daryl Yee for accepting an associate professor at EPFL!

Congratulations to Dr. Rebecca Gallivan for a successful thesis defense! Rebecca becomes the 32nd PhD graduate of the Greer group!

June 2022

Akash Dhawan passed his qualifying exam for Medical Engineering!

Congrats to alum Dr. Carlos Portela for being selected as one of the MIT Technology Review's Innovators under 35

Congratulations to Dr. Max Saccone for a successful thesis defense! Max becomes the 31st PhD graduate of the Greer group, and its first in-person defender since December 2019!

May 2022

Max Saccone won the Best Presentation Bronze Award at the 2022 MRS Spring Symposium in Advanced Manufactured Materials - Innovative Experiments, Computational Modeling and Applications for his talk titled "Hydrogel Infusion Additive Manufacturing of Mesoscale Metals and Alloys"

Max Saccone was selected as a Graduate Student Silver Award Winner for his presentation at the Materials Research Society Spring 2022 conference

Wenxin Zhang passed her candidacy for Mechanical Engineering!

April 2022

Sammy Shaker passed his candidacy for Bioengineering!

Rebecca Gallivan was selected as a 2022 Amazon AI4Science Fellow. The award helps harness collaborations between AI and other disciplines for scientific and engineering advancement.

Rebecca Gallivan presented her Science Journey:"Defects in Crystals: The Tiniest Engineering Tool" at Caltech. You can see it here

Dr. Kai Narita, Max Saccone, and Yuchun Sun published their perspective on additive manufacturing of 3D batteries

Thomas Tran was awarded the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship!

Rebecca Gallivan received the 2022 KNI Catalyst Award for her mentorship and outreach efforts! Read about it here

Kevin Nakahara passed his qualifying exam for Mechanical Engineering!

Kevin Nakahara was awarded an honorable mention from the National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate Fellowship Program

Fernando Villafuerte presented his Science Journey:"Addressing Energy Storage Challenges: Making Electrolytes That Can Help Batteries Store More Energy" at Caltech. You can see it here

Max Saccone completed the Certificate of Practice in University Teaching from the Caltech Project for Effective Teaching and CTLO

Max Saccone presented his work at Caltech's 3 Minute Thesis Competition Final Event. You can see his presentation here

2021

December 2021

Rebecca Gallivan was selected as a Graduate Student Silver Award Winner for her presentation at the Materials Research Society Fall 2021 conference

November 2021

Greer group alum, Dr. Kai Narita, was selected by the MIT Technology Review for their Innovators Under 35 Japan 2021 award

Widi Moestopo's poster, "Pushing and Pulling on Ropes: Energy Dissipation and Reconfiguration in Hierarchical Woven and Knotted Lattices," was chosen as one of the winners of the "Size Matters" section of the Society of Engineering Science's Annual conference!

September 2021

Dr. Greer dicusses our current electroactive polymers project and its implication in the field of refreshable displays for people with visual impairments on the "On Tech & Vision" podcast with Dr. Cal Roberts.

Wenxin Zhang her qualifying exam for Mechanical Engineering!

August 2021

Rebecca Gallivan is a featured speaker on the Department of Engineering and Applied Science's Steps Forward showcase where she describes her research. You can see her on the EAS website!

June 2021

MIT Assistant Professor and Greer Group Alum Dr. Carlos Portela's work on nanoarchitected materials designed to absorb impact from supersonic projectiles has been published in Nature Materials! The paper is currently featured on the Caltech website.

May 2021

Congratulations to Dr. Kai Narita for a successful thesis defense! Kai becomes the 30th PhD graduate of the Greer group, and its seventh Zoom defender!

Former Greer group postdoc Dr. Ye Shi's work on cactus-inspired, architected structures for capturing water from the air has been published in Nature Communications and is featured on the Caltech website! This work served as the foundation of our DARPA atmospheric water extraction (AWE) grant (Amylynn Chen’s project).

February 2021

The Greer Group's work on additively manufactured, 3D electrodes is making waves! Greer Group alum Dr. Daryl Yee's work on additively manufactured, 3D lithium cobalt oxide cathodes has been featured on the cover of Advanced Materials Technologies, and Kai Narita's work on additively manufactured, 3D carbon electrodes has been featured on the cover of Advanced Energy Materials.

Daryl and Kai's work has also been highlighted in Advanced Science News and their twitter, in addition to an article in 3D Printing Industry. Congratulations to both!

2020

December 2020

Dr. Luizetta Elliott's work on shape memory polymers is featured on Caltech's website. Congratulations!

Congratulations to Dr. Luizetta Elliott for successfully defending her thesis, becoming the sixth Greer Group Zoom Defender!

Congratulations to Dr. Bryce Edwards for successfully defending his thesis, becoming the fifth Greer Group Zoom Defender!

Congratulations to Dr. Jane Zhang for successfully defending her thesis, becoming the fourth Greer Group Zoom Defender!

September 2020

Congratulations to Seola for passing her qualification exam!

August 2020

Dr. Michael Citrin's work on mechanical study of lithium dendrites is featured on Caltech's website. Congratulations!

June 2020

Congratulations to Yuchun for passing her candidacy exam!

Congratulations to Miranda for winning the 2020 Senior Undergraduate Thesis Prize!

May 2020

Congratulations to Dr. Daryl Yee for successfully defending his thesis, and for being the third Greer Group Zoom defender!

Congratulations to Dr. Anthony Kwong for successfully defending his thesis, and for being the second Greer Group Zoom defender!

Congratulations to Dr. Andrey Vyatskikh for successfully defending his thesis, and being the first to do so via Zoom!

March 2020

Congratulations to Dr. Ryan Ng on winning the prestigious Marie Curie individual postdoctoral fellowship at the Institut Català de Nanociència i Nanotechnologia in Barcelona, Spain

2019

December 2019 Congratulations to Dr. Ryan Ng on successfully defending his thesis!

Congratulations to Andrey for winning the Graduate Student Gold Award and the Best Poster Award at the 2019 Fall MRS conference!

October 2019 Max was recently named a Resnick Graduate Fellow. Congratulations!

Congratulations to Carlos for winning the Gold Paper Award at the Society of Engineering Science (SES) 2019 technical meeting!

Congratulations to Andrew for passing his candidacy exam!

September 2019 Congratulations to Dr. Michael Citrin on successfully defending his thesis!

Xiaoxing's Nature paper on electrochemically reconfigurable materials was featured on Caltech's website!.

August 2019 Carlos recently won the Best Fast-Forward Presentation Award at the International Design Engineering Technical Conferences & Information In Engineering Conference. Congratulations!

June 2019 Julia was recently named a winner of the AAAFM Heeger Award.

Congratulations to our newest PhD candidates, Fernando and Amy!

May 2019 Congratulations to Rebecca and Widi for passing their candidacy exams!

Congratulations to Dr. Xiaoxing Xia on successfully defending his thesis!

Congratulations to Dr. Carlos Portela Galindo on successfully defending his thesis, and for winning the Centennial Prize for the Best Thesis in Mechanical and Civil Engineering!

Greer Group 2018
From left to right: Drs. Adenike Giwa, Carlos Portela Galindo, Julia Greer, Max Lifson, and Xiaoxing Xia

April 2019 Congratulations to Xiaoxing for winning a silver graduate student award at the 2019 spring MRS!

Congratulations to Pedro on winning the NSF fellowship!

Congratulations to Amy on winning both the NSF and NDSEG fellowships!

January 2019 Julia performed two piano pieces by Schumann and Bosmans while at the Physics@Veldhoven meeting. Watch it here

2018

December 2018 Dr. Max Lifson is now the newest graduate of the Greer group following a successful thesis defense. Congratulations!

October 2018 Congratulations to the now Dr. Ottman Tertuliano on a successful thesis defense!

October 2018 Congratulations to Widi for passing his qualifying exam!

September 2018 Max Saccone is the first of his class to pass his candidacy exam. Congratulations!

June 2018 Congratulations to our newest Doctors: Dr. Adenike Giwa, Dr. Dylan Tozier, and Dr. Arturo Mateos for successfully defending their theses.

May 2018 Congrats to Andrey who was recently named a Resnick graduate fellow!

May 2018 Congratulations to Anthony, Kai, Jane, Andrey, and Kewei for passing their candidacy exams!

Apr 2018 Jane won the second prize for the best student contributor award in the MRS CM05 symposium, congratulations!

Apr 2018 Julia was recently featured on the ABC Science Show. See and listen to it here!

Apr 2018 Ottman was awarded with a gold graduate student award at the 2018 MRS Spring Meeting, congratulations Ottman!

Mar 2018 Rachel's work on irradiation of nano-architectured metallic glass is highlighted on Advanced Science New!

Feb 2018 Congratulations to Andrey Vyatskikh on publishing his work on Additive Manufacturing of Metals (AM) featured on Caltech's website!

2017

Oct 2017 Congratulations to the now Dr. Xiaoyue Ni, Dr. Eric Luo, Dr. Alessandro Maggi, and Dr. Victoria Chernow for successfully defending their theses.

Jun 2017 Daryl was selected into the Biotechnology Leadership Predoctoral Program in Micro/Nanomedicine at Caltech that will provide him the opportunity to work at biotech companies via internships! Congratulations, Daryl!

Jun 2017 Congratulations to Bryce for being the first of his class to pass his candidacy exam!

Jun 2017 Ryan was recently awarded with a CCE Teaching Assistantship Award granted to the division's most exceptional teaching assistants. Congratulations!

Apr 2017 The Greer troops present at the MRS Spring 2017 meeting! Adenike, Xiaoxing, and Xuan present talks, and Julia presents in Symposium X. Click here to see a video/write-up of her talk.

2016

Dec 2016 Chen's new paper in PNAS on properties of small-scale Li is featured on the front page of Caltech news today! See it here!

Dec 2016 Congratulations to Diandra Almasco (and her mentor Carlos Portela) for winning first place for her SURF poster!

Sep 2016 Congratulations to Amanda for passing her qualifying exams!

Sep 2016 Congratulations to Dr. Rachel Liontas on completing her PhD!

Aug 2016 Congratulations to our newest PhD - Dr. Chen Xu on a successful defense!

May 2016 Congratulations to Ryan, Max, Mike, Arturo, Carlos, Daryl, Alessandro, and Adenike for passing their candidacy exams!

May 2016 Congratulations to the now Dr. Lucas Meza and Dr. David Chen on successfully defending both of their dissertations!

Mar 2016 Check out Julia's new video on CNN!

Mar 2016 Julia was named as one of fifteen 2016 National Security Science and Engineering Faculty Fellows by the DoD! See it here.

Feb 2016 Zach and Eric's new PNAS paper is featured in a Caltech news article!

Jan. 2016 See the new NBC-NSF video featuring the Greer group that went live today!

2015

Dec 2015 Greer troops take MRS by storm, with presentations by David Chen, Viki Chernow, Lauren Montemayor (alum), Julia, and posters by Dylan and Adenike. Adenike also gave a talk at the African MRS after.

Dec 2015 Special issue of MRS Bulletin with a focus on Innovation comes out, with a featured review article by Viki and Lauren!

Nov 2015 Julia gives a talk at TEDxManhattanBeach. See the talk here.

Oct 2015 Congratulations to Dylan for his wonderful talk at the 2015 ECS fall conference and to Xiaoxing for winning the best poster award!