PNNL researchers contribute to global discussions about the latest materials research
Guomin Zhu, a PNNL and University of Washington materials scientist, received a gold award during the 2021 Materials Research Society Spring 2021 meeting.
(Image composite by Shannon Colson | Pacific Northwest National Laboratory)
Guomin Zhu, a PhD student who completed his course work at the University of Washington and research at PNNL with Battelle Fellow James De Yoreo, was one of four recipients of this year’s Graduate Student Gold Awards, bestowed by the Materials Research Society (MRS) at its Spring 2021 Meeting. Zhu presented his work on “Self-Similar Mesocrystals Form via Interface-Driven Nucleation and Assembly.”
The week-long annual MRS spring conference provides an opportunity for an international community of over 11,500 members and other researchers to share information about the future of materials science.
“It was a great honor to receive the award, and I really appreciate my collaborators, group members, and other staff scientists at the Laboratory,” Zhu said. “Working at PNNL has been a wonderful experience. I’ll always be grateful for the scientific discussions and random conversations I had with the researchers. Looking back now, I realize it’s those small conversations that put all the pieces together.”
Zhu’s work has been supported by several of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science Basic Energy Sciences programs.
“Most of all, I feel very honored and proud to work with Jim (De Yoreo)” Zhu added. “I’ve been impressed by his dedication, openness, support, and willingness to help his students in many different ways. He is truly my role model in this scientific endeavor.”
During the event, more than 30 PNNL staff and six affiliated staff led 45 presentations on their latest research and submitted 49 abstracts this year.
De Yoreo is chief scientist for the multi-institutional program Materials Synthesis and Simulation Across Scales, a U.S. Department of Energy Frontier Research Center, and holds a joint appointment at University of Washington’s Department of Materials Science and Engineering. In addition to De Yoreo, PNNL had many symposium organizers and presenters at this year’s event. They included Chun-Long Chen, who holds a joint appointment at University of Washington’s Department of Chemical Engineering, Aaron Hollas, Dongsheng Li, Dongping Lu, Karl Mueller, Vijayakumar Murugesan, Kevin Rosso, Peter Sushko, Daniel Schreiber, and Xin Zhang. Battery development and reliability expert Xiaolin Li was one of the annual meeting chairs. For highlights of spring 2021 presentations, visit PNNL’s MRS meeting page.
Published: May 27, 2021