MSE is proud to announce that Ph.D. students Nishkarsh Agarwal, Dongjae Shin and Mustafa Tobah each received a Rackham Predoctoral Fellowship for 2025-26. 

The prestigious fellowship supports outstanding doctoral students working on dissertations that are unusually creative, ambitious, and impactful. The award includes a stipend and covers tuition and required fees for twelve months.

Below are each recipient's thesis title and research description.

Nishkarsh Agarwal
Hovden Group
"Advanced Electron Microscopy of quantum materials across extreme temperature range"

Phase transitions, like ice melting into water, are a very intrinsic part of our world. In quantum materials, these phase transitions can be more erratic and are key to understanding their behavior under non-equilibrium conditions. This can open new possibilities for engineering quantum devices, that could revolutionize technologies such as ultra-sensitive sensors, fast computers, and robust memory storage. However, many of these transitions involve electronic, magnetic, or lattice order, which emerge on atomic to mesoscopic scales and remain incompletely understood. My research uses in-situ transmission electron microscopy (TEM) to directly observe these exotic transitions at the atomic scale under precisely controlled conditions of temperature, magnetic field, and electrical bias. By developing and applying advanced in-situ TEM techniques, I study materials like magnetic moiré lattices, charge density wave systems, and intercalated layered structures across a wide temperature range (23 K to >1173 K).

Dongjae Shin
Li Group
"Density-Controlled Ion Transport in Amorphous Metal Oxides: Implications for Next-Generation Energy and Microelectronic Technologies"

Ion transport in amorphous materials is critical for emerging energy and microelectronic technologies, yet our fundamental understanding remains limited. My dissertation investigates the relationship between density and ion transport in amorphous metal oxides, focusing on hafnium oxide (HfO₂) thin films. We demonstrate that density variations of over 20% can be achieved through vapor deposition techniques. Using a new tracer diffusion method with isotopically enriched multilayer structures, our results reveal that atomic layer deposited HfO2 exhibits significantly slower oxygen diffusion compared to sputtered films, attributed to differences in material density. This work establishes density as a key design parameter for controlling ion transport in amorphous materials, contrasting sharply with traditional crystalline material principles. The findings have direct implications for the performance and reliability of resistive memory devices, providing new design strategies for next-generation energy and microelectronic applications.

Mustafa Tobah
Misra Group
"Fundamental understanding of far-from equilibrium effects on microstructural evolution and mechanical behavior of multi-component metal alloys"

Far-from-equilibrium thermal processing of metals through additive manufacturing (AM) allows for highly unique microstructures with potentially superior mechanical behavior compared to metals made through traditional manufacturing. My thesis will combine multiple AM techniques, such as laser powder bed fusion (PBF-LB), electron-beam powder bed fusion (PBF-EB), and laser directed energy deposition (DED-LB) to develop a comprehensive understanding of melt-pool microstructure evolution in multi-phase alloys. The work will be focused on duplex stainless steel with the primary constituent phases of austenite and ferrite, and a novel Ni-Cr binary eutectic alloy. Additionally, microstructure characterization via electron microscopy and electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD), nanomechanical testing, including in situ tensile testing under scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and calculation of phase formation using AM computational modules will be performed. In addition, novel microstructures using the unique capabilities of AM techniques will be developed to demonstrate the ability of AM to surpass the capabilities of traditional manufacturing.

Congratulations to Nishkarsh, Dongjae and Mustafa!