Beth Opila in her lab

Starting at the Nanoscale to Solve Complex Challenges

We translate fundamental discoveries at the nanoscale into materials that benefit society.

We Leverage Material Properties to Benefit Society

The vast majority of the materials people encounter every day have been engineered to have specific properties that make the materials useful or valuable. As materials scientists and engineers, our goal is to understand how the arrangement of the materials' structures on a very fine scale translates into materials with properties that can benefit society. 

Our department continually strives to expand its core strengths and to work across disciplines to address complex challenges, from more efficient jet engines to new electronic materials that extend the limits of Moore's law. With recent faculty hires, we have reinforced our expertise in these areas: 

  • Corrosion
  • High-temperature materials
  • Surfaces and interface science
  • Electronic materials
  • Computational materials science

And we are firmly established in such emerging fields as two-dimensional materials, soft and/or biological materials, and functional thermal material systems.

Thornton Hall

Celebrating 50 Years of Corrosion and Electrochemistry Research at UVA

Please join us for the June 1, 2024 celebration of 50 years of corrosion and electrochemistry research at UVA! This event will also serve as a remembrance of Glenn Stoner, the founder of our research center, who passed away in the summer of 2023.

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Research Highlights

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