UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Six materials researchers at Penn State have received the 2025 Rustum and Della Roy Innovation in Materials Research Award, recognizing a wide range of research with societal impact. The award is presented by the Materials Research Institute (MRI) for recent interdisciplinary materials research at Penn State that yields innovative and unexpected results.
The award includes four categories: early-career faculty, non-tenure faculty, post-doctoral scholar and graduate student. It exists thanks to a gift from Della and Rustum Roy, who were both alumni of Penn State’s College of Earth and Mineral Sciences, as well aslong-serving faculty in the college.
This year’s winners, listed below, were announced at the 2025 Materials Day event in October.
Graduate student awardees:
Vinay Kammarchedu, doctoral candidate, electrical engineering
Kammarchedu’s research focuses on developing advanced sensing systems built from emerging materials and data-driven techniques. He designs new types of electronics to detect key chemical, biological and physical signals in real time, including sensors based on two-dimensional materials, flexible wearable devices and artificial intelligence (AI)-enhanced measurement platforms. By drawing on materials science, bioengineering and computational analysis, he is creating a broad set of tools to monitor health, track environmental conditions and support interactions between people and technology.
“The technologies being developed have the potential to improve public health, environmental safety and everyday quality of life,” Kammarchedu said. “Wearable and mobile sensors may enable earlier detection of health-related changes without the need for invasive tests, while advanced chemical sensing platforms may allow contaminants in water, air and soil to be identified more rapidly and at lower cost. In addition, new human-machine interface systems may support rehabilitation, assistive robotics and more intuitive control of devices. Collectively, these innovations are intended to contribute to more accessible health care, cleaner environments and improved technological accessibility for a broad population.”
Maria Barsukova, graduate student, physics
Barsukova’s work revolves around designing tiny, chip-scale structures that can fundamentally change the way light interacts with materials — even when those materials contain small flaws from the fabrication process. Normally, those imperfections scatter light in random directions and reduce a device’s efficiency. She studies a type of carefully engineered “correlated disorder” that suppresses certain kinds of scattering, allowing light to travel with little or no loss, almost as if the material were perfectly smooth. Using silicon photonic crystals packed with millions of microscopic features, which are ultra-small patterns, holes and ridges that are often the size of bacteria, she observes how this transition happens and how light behaves when randomness isn’t removed but intentionally built in. At its core, her work turns disorder from a drawback into a tool for controlling light in new ways.
“This work opens the door to optical technologies that are more robust, more scalable, and ultimately more affordable,” Barsukova said. “If we can make photonic devices that don’t fail when tiny imperfections appear, which they always do, then everything from high-speed communications to medical imaging tools can become more powerful and more reliable. In the long term, the same principles may help improve endoscopes, laser-surgery tools, optical sensors and even future on-chip light-based computers. In short, by teaching light to navigate imperfect environments, we can create technologies that perform better in the world we live.”
Post-doctoral scholar awardee:
Kavyashree Keremane, postdoctoral researcher in material science and engineering
By combining advanced materials with bio-inspired design, Keremane’s research focuses on developing sustainable, next-generation electronic and energy systems. She works on DNA-semiconductor hybrid memristors, which are tiny memory devices that store information the way the brain does, to allow computers to process data using far less power than traditional systems. Keremane also develops laser-based wireless power transfer technology, in which a beam of light is converted into electricity by high-efficiency perovskite solar cells. This is a kind of “remote charging” useful for spacecraft and medical implants that cannot rely on wires. In addition, she advances lightweight, flexible solar modules made from perovskites, a new class of materials that absorb light efficiently and can be manufactured more sustainably than conventional solar panels. Together, her work aims to create ultra-efficient, self-powered devices that integrate computing, power generation and communication in compact, environmentally friendly platforms.
“By developing bio-inspired memory storage devices, my work could enable brain-like computing systems that learn, adapt and process information locally, dramatically reducing energy consumption in data centers, space missions and edge devices,” Keremane said. “These ultra-low-power, flexible memories can also advance intelligent wearables and neuromorphic sensors. Further, my research on laser-induced wireless energy transfer using high-efficiency perovskite solar cells introduces a new way to deliver clean, contactless energy to remote, mobile or implantable devices, eliminating the need for batteries or wired charging. Ultimately, these innovations promote energy sustainability, smarter technology integration and long-term reliability, benefiting society through greener computing, self-powered electronics, and advancements in communication and space exploration.”
Non-tenure line research faculty and research staff awardee:
Maziar Montazerian, assistant research professor, MRI
Montazerian’s research focuses on developing and improving specialized glass materials used in medicine and dentistry. Unlike the glass found in windows, electronics or optical fibers, these bioactive glasses and dental glass-ceramics are designed to interact with the body. His group studies how to make them stronger, safer and more functional so they can help heal bones, support dental implants and even fight bacteria. Montazerian also uses computational modeling to analyze the materials’ microscopic structures, a step that helps researchers design improved versions more quickly.
“My work aims to make medical and dental treatments more effective, comfortable and accessible for everyday people,” he said. “For example, advanced dental glass-ceramics can create longer-lasting, more natural-looking dental crowns, veneers, and restoratives, reducing the need for repeat procedures. The bioactive glasses we study can bond with bone and stimulate healing, and some of the materials we’ve published on can even show up clearly on X-rays and fight bacteria, helping doctors spot and treat problems more easily. Our computational studies also speed up the discovery of new solutions, saving time and money in healthcare innovation. In short, my research is about improving people’s health and quality of life, from dental clinics to operating rooms.”
Early-career faculty awardees:
Yang Yang, assistant professor of engineering science and mechanics
Yang’s work uses advanced electron microscopes to examine materials at the level of individual atoms and understand how they behave under extreme conditions, including high stress, heat and radiation. He and his team develop tools to track how materials change in real time and use computer modeling and data analysis to identify the atomic mechanisms behind those changes. The work is aimed at designing safer, stronger and longer-lasting materials for applications in energy, transportation and electronics.
“The materials we use every day — in cars, airplanes, power plants, electronics — are constantly pushed to their limits,” Yang said. “My research helps us understand how and why materials fail under extreme conditions so we can design better ones. This can lead to safer transportation, more reliable electronics and cleaner, longer-lasting energy systems. In the long run, it means fewer breakdowns, lower costs and technologies that perform better and last longer in our daily lives.”
Joseph Najem, assistant professor of mechanical engineering
Najem’s research focuses on creating new types of “smart” materials that behave more like living systems than traditional machines. Rather than simply mimicking nature, his lab uses the same kinds of materials, structures, and principles that biological systems rely on. These materials can sense their surroundings, process information, adapt, and even generate their own power. In the lab, he and his team build soft, tissue-like networks made from tiny droplets connected by lipid membranes, where the droplets communicate through ion channels like actual cells do, and use these networks to process information in ways that resemble brain activity. They also design hydrogel-based power sources inspired by electric fish that generate electricity from natural salt gradients. The work brings together biology, engineering, and materials science to understand how simple, soft materials can be organized to carry out complex functions.
“Our research could lead to a new generation of low-power, sustainable technologies that work safely alongside biological systems,” Najem said. “Smart materials that compute like the brain could enable artificial intelligence to operate directly at the ‘edge’ and make lifelike soft robots with built-in decision-making possible. Our hydrogel-based power sources could provide safe, flexible, environmentally friendly batteries for wearable health monitors or implanted medical sensors, reducing risks from traditional batteries. Because these materials use very little energy, like the human brain, they may also help create more efficient computing as AI energy demands grow. In short, this work aims to make technology gentler on the environment, safer for the body and more capable of responding intelligently to the world.”