Over the last three years, the interdisciplinary team at the University of Tennessee’s Center for Advanced Materials and Manufacturing (CAMM) has contributed to more than 41 research publications advancing the design and synthesis of next-generation materials for use in quantum computing, renewable energy, national security, and aerospace engineering.
What’s even more impressive is that nearly half of the team’s members are still earning their degrees.
CAMM is a National Science Foundation (NSF) Materials Research Science and Engineering Center (MRSEC)—one of a network of collaborative, interdisciplinary research and education facilities addressing pressing needs in science and engineering. Established in 2023 with a starting grant of $18 million, CAMM is devoted to researching quantum materials and materials for extreme environments, with an emphasis on developing artificial intelligence (AI) processes and tools to transform material development.
Three years after its inception, CAMM now includes more than 40 UT faculty members, representing four departments in the Tickle College of Engineering (TCE) and three in the College of Arts and Sciences (CAS). Thirteen postdoctoral fellows and more than 30 graduate students also work at the center, helping train nearly 20 undergraduate researchers.
“A MRSEC can do a lot more than I first realized,” said CAMM director Alan Tennant, who holds joint professorships in TCE’s Department of Materials Science and Engineering (MSE) and CAS’s Department of Physics and Astronomy. “The opportunity to build a new kind of environment for our students, postdocs, and faculty has exceeded our expectations by a significant margin.”
CAMM’s greatest impact lies in its transformative approach to research, training, and education. Researchers from every part of the academic and career pipeline participate in state-of-the-art approaches across disciplines, gaining experience in new techniques and interdisciplinary collaboration much earlier than is possible in a traditional laboratory setting.
Graduate students within the MRSEC have multiple faculty advisors and conduct cross-disciplinary work. Undergraduates are encouraged to rotate frequently, benefiting from the expertise of graduate students, postdocs, and faculty in multiple fields.
That collaborative structure can have a profound effect on early-career researchers, said MSE Assistant Professor Yishu Wang, CAMM’s deputy director of education, community, outreach, and recruitment (ECOR).
“As a junior faculty member in CAMM, I was able to start applying machine-learning methods to quantum materials problems before that became a broader trend,” Wang said. “This early engagement has allowed me to integrate these approaches more naturally into my research program, positioning me to take advantage of new opportunities as the field evolves.”
Interdisciplinary Training and Mentorship
A CAMM team recently published the most accurate map ever constructed of how a single helium atom interacts with one molecule of benzene, a naturally occurring carbon compound, creating a better foundation for designing future quantum materials and devices.
The project involved high-level quantum chemistry, machine learning, and quantum simulations—and the research team included three graduate students.
“I see every day how our culture of innovation and collaboration transforms traditional research training,” said Amber White, CAMM’s program manager. “We are fostering a dynamic community where participants grow as leaders, communicators, and collaborators, uniquely positioning them to succeed in today’s evolving workforce.”
In addition to giving students at all levels the opportunity to collaborate with teams in different research areas—and across IRGs—CAMM organizes professional development workshops at the Institute of Advanced Materials and Manufacturing (IAMM). The workshops cover technical topics like how to use different AI techniques as well as interpersonal and career topics like time management, negotiation skills, and entrepreneurship.
CAMM also emphasizes communication skills, especially how to communicate research results and their real-world impact to the public. Workshops on scientific writing and similar skills are rounded out with informal conversations and mentor relationships, which graduate students experience from both sides.
“Many CAMM students have remarked that explaining their research to visiting high schoolers or mentoring undergraduate students helps them better understand what they are doing,” said MSE Professor and CAMM ECOR Director Claudia Rawn. “Participating in outreach and mentoring forces them to think about their research in both the ‘big picture’ and fundamental contexts, and why and how their research fits with CAMM’s goals.”
Complex, Impactful Research
Like all MRSECs, CAMM immerses every participating researcher—from first-year undergraduate to senior faculty member—in an interdisciplinary research group (IRG).
CAMM’s IRG1 combines experts in physics, chemistry, materials science, and electrical engineering and computer science to study quantum materials. IRG2 brings materials scientists together with civil, environmental, and nuclear engineers to develop materials that can function in extreme temperature, pressure, and radiation conditions.
The IRGs are far from isolated, however. They are connected with shared emphasis on AI techniques; both also take advantage of state-of-the-art tools at UT and ORNL, including neutron sources, high-performance computing support, electron spectroscopy and microscopy facilities, and both high and low-temperature testing equipment.
They also frequently cross-pollinate; more than a dozen of the research publications resulting from CAMM so far have involved researchers from both IRGs.
“The science really only works if physicists, materials scientists, mathematicians, chemists, and computer scientists are in conversation from the beginning,” said IRG1 Lead Investigator Adrian Del Maestro, a professor in the Min H. Kao Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. “CAMM gives us a framework for tackling that complexity as a team rather than in isolation.”
IRG members’ cross-disciplinary interactions often lead to more creative and effective solutions to research problems, Wang said, and help faculty and students alike access perspectives that challenge the assumptions of their respective fields.
CAMM’s incredible publication record and training success over its brief history are testaments to the far-reaching impacts of interdisciplinary cooperation and a research culture built around AI, simulation, and real-time data interpretation.
As the center embarks on its fourth year, new and ongoing research projects promise to continue pushing the boundaries of material development. Del Maestro says that pre-trained AI models, autonomous experiment steering, shared computational resources, and CAMM seed funding will help the center’s researchers design better experiments and learn from them faster.
“Participating in CAMM has broadened both the scope of the questions we can ask and the tools we bring to the work,” he said. “The exciting part is not just that the data are big; it is that new tools are finally letting us ask and answer scientific questions that used to be out of reach.”
Contact
Izzie Gall ([email protected])