Q-NEXT has been renewed for 5 more years, and UIUC’s Prof. Paul Kwiat will continue as the UIUC PI, working with faculty in both the Physics and Materials Science & Engineering departments. ➡️ anl.gov/article/argonn…

Congrats to Postdoctoral Fellow Jongwon Lim on winning the BMES-CMBE Postdoctoral Researcher Travel Award! He'll present his team's latest research at the BMES-CMBE Conference in January.  🔗 mrl.illinois.edu/news/79247

Major breakthrough: Prof. Cunjiang Yu's team created "rubbery CMOS," fully functional circuits made entirely from stretchable materials 🔗 ece.illinois.edu/news/first-rub…

🔋Breakthrough in solid-state batteries! PhD student Saeed Moradi, Prof. Ben Zahiri & Prof. Paul V. Braun achieved 1,000 cycles at 1 MPa pressure (vs. 80 MPa previously needed) 🔗 matse.illinois.edu/news/78312

🌟 Congrats to Associate Prof. Hua Wang on 2 major awards! 🏆 BMES-CMBE Rising Star Award 🏆 AAEV Young Investigator Award His lab's breakthroughs: next-gen tumor exosome vaccines, mRNA cancer vaccines & immune cell engineering technologies 🔗 matse.illinois.edu/news/78836

⚛️ Quantum breakthrough: Prof. Chris Anderson's team discovered strontium titanate (STO) has electro-optic effects 40x stronger than leading materials at cryogenic temps. 🔗 matse.illinois.edu/news/78407

⚛️ Prof. Angela Kou's team awarded $4.8M from AFOSR to solve quantum computing's TLS defect problem. 🔗 grainger.illinois.edu/news/stories/a…

Prof. Cecilia Leal joins $2M NSF project to create bio-inspired separation membranes Goal: Replace 60-year-old toxic manufacturing process with cell-inspired design 🔗 matse.illinois.edu/news/78072

⚛️ Prof. Virginia Lorenz awarded $800K from NSF to advance quantum memory technology Also includes: 🎓 Training programs 👩‍🏫 New master's program for HS teachers 🌐 Public Quantum Network engagement 🔗 iquist.illinois.edu/news/79223

Prof. Jean-Charles Stinville's team developed "Material Spatial Intelligence"—AI that reads metal alloys' unique "fingerprints" ✅ Predicts properties orders of magnitude faster ✅ Captures full microstructure detail ✅ Accelerates materials discovery ➡️matse.illinois.edu/news/79262

Prof. Cecilia Leal joins major ARPA-H "MIGHTY" project using phages as precision alternatives to antibiotics. Her role: Designing materials to encapsulate & deliver phages to oral cavity 🔗 matse.illinois.edu/news/79067

Cool collaboration alert: Prof. Paul V. Braun is teaming up with Nissan to boost EV range by 25-50% The twist? Nissan sent engineer Yasunori Abe from Japan to work on-campus for the whole project.  mrl.illinois.edu/news/79373

Researchers from the lab of Elizabeth Goldschmidt were able to slow light on-chip by nearly one thousand times, an advancement for photonic chips.  iquist.illinois.edu/news/79523

Materials science and engineering professor Pinshane Huang ended 2025 on a high note: she was recognized by Physics World for achieving on the of Top 10 Breakthroughs of 2025 for capturing the highest-resolution images ever taken of individual atoms. ⚛️ matse.illinois.edu/news/80247

A team of physicists from The Grainger College of Engineering have recorded the first observation of a specific fundamental instability in everyday materials. Their findings were published in Nature Physics. mrl.illinois.edu/news/80439

A Congressional bipartisan bill seeks to extend federal support for quantum technology through 2034. The Grainger College of Engineering Professor and IQMP Director and CTO Brian DeMarco explains how federal funding bolsters quantum research within Illinois and the nation. bizjournals.com/chicago/news/2…

Congratulations Professor Qian Chen for being elected the vice chair of the American Chemical Society's Division of Colloid and Surface Chemistry’s (COLL) Awards Committee!   matse.illinois.edu/news/80318

Professor Dallas Trinkle and colleagues have provided the first quantitative explanation for how magnetic fields slow carbon atom movement through iron, a phenomenon first observed in the 1970s but never fully understood. matse.illinois.edu/news/80460

Solid-state batteries promise higher energy, faster charging, and longer life. One company says they have the tech EV ready. MRL’s Paul Braun weighs in on claims that this tech will hit city streets within months. washingtonpost.com/climate-soluti…

Metal alloys crack and fail through a mechanism called “fatigue” when repeatedly loaded and strained. Assistant Professor Jean-Charles Stinville and his team have demonstrated how fatigue resistance can be greatly enhanced.  🔗 matse.illinois.edu/news/80920