The MMRI Annual Summit was held on June 3–4, 2026, at the North Campus Research Complex. The event brought together over 220 researchers, students, faculty, and industry partners to showcase cutting-edge materials research and foster collaboration across disciplines. The UM attendees came from multiple colleges/departments: CoE (Materials Science & Engineering, Chemical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering & Computer Science, Nuclear Engineering and Radiological Sciences, Biomedical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, Naval Architecture & Marine Engineering, Industrial & Operations Engineering, Robotics Engineering, Civil & Environment Engineering), LS&A (Chemistry, Applied Physics, Physics, Earth & Environmental Sciences, Statistics), Medical School, Pharmacy, Ross Business School, and Dental School.
This year’s summit featured more than 90 poster presentations from undergraduate, master’s, and Ph.D. students, 11 industry presentations from leading organizations including Raytheon, ASICS, Dow, General Motors, Lam Research, First Solar, Mercedes-Benz, Toyota, and ZEISS, as well as over 10 presentations from faculty members and MMRI seed funding recipients.
The MMRI 2026 Annual Summit Agenda contains detailed information about all posters, presenters, and speakers.
Be sure to explore the MMRI 2026 Summit Photo Gallery to relive the highlights and see the excitement and engagement that made this year’s event such a success!
Check out this LinkedIn article highlighting the main events: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/mmri-mc2-annual-summit-bringing-materials-vy6kc/.
Student/Postdoc Poster Winners
(MC)2 Category
Gold Winner
Amaan Mohammad
Affiliated with University of Michigan Chemistry, Mohammad Amaan received the Gold award for his project titled, “Aramid Nanofiber Binders for Sustainable Dry Cathode Manufacturing”.
Silver Winners
Lucero Lopez
Affiliated with University of Michigan Materials Science & Engineering, Lucero Lopez received the Silver award for her project titled, “Characterization of deformation mechanisms in Mg-1Y alloy utilizing in situ tensile testing in SEM and High-Resolution Electron Back Scattered Diffraction”.
Lingfeng Zhou
Affiliated with University of Michigan Nuclear Engineering and Radiological Sciences, Lingfeng Zhou received the Silver award for his project titled, “Investigating the Effect of Molybdenum Content on Proton Irradiated FeCrAl Alloys”.
Kody Whisnant
Affiliated with University of Michigan Chemical Engineering, Kody Whisnant received the Silver award for his project titled, “Structural Complexity Quantification of Network Materials Using a Graph Theoretical Approach”.
Varun Srinivas Venkatesh
Affiliated with University of Michigan Materials Science and Engineering, Varun Srinivas Venkatesh received the Silver award for his project titled, “Learning grain growth outcomes from experimental datasets using graph neural networks”.
Non (MC)2Category
Gold Winner
William Brackett
Affiliated with University of Michigan Chemical Engineering, William Brackett received the Gold award for his project titled, “Molecularly-linked Dynamic Covalent Nanocrystal Gels Show Size-Dependent Arrest Kinetics Before Relaxing to Common States”.
Silver Winners
Paola V Mendez
Affiliated with University of Michigan Materials Science and Engineering, Paola V Mendez received the Silver award for her project titled, “Electrochemical Storage of Non-Lithium Alkali Ions in Wadsley-Roth Phase Nanocrystals”.
Chuqi Huang
Affiliated with University of Michigan Materials Science and Engineering, Chuqi Huag received the Silver award for her project titled, “Photochemical Fuel Carrier Molecules for Robotic Embodied Energy”.
Zoe Meyer
Affiliated with University of Michigan Materials Science and Engineering, Zoe Meyer received the Silver award for her project titled, “Durable, broad-spectrum anti-biofouling polyurethane-based coatings”.
Woo Je Chang
Affiliated with University of Michigan Chemical Engineering, Woo Je Chang received the Silver award for his project titled, “Electrochemical control of tunable infrared nanocrystal metasurfaces”.
Ganlin Chen
Affiliated with University of Michigan Materials Science and Engineering, Ganlin Chen received the Silver award for his project titled, “Prediction of Nucleation Energetics and Critical Stress for Phase Transformation-induced Deformation Twinning in Metastable Titanium Alloys”.
Stay tuned for an update on the poster presenter’s view on their research field, impact, and future direction!