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Faculty & Staff

Click on the name to be directed to Faculty Biographies.

 

Leadership Team

Greg Parsons
NC State Site Director
Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering – NC State
Atomic Layer Deposition, Molecular Electronics, Nanotube Structures, Low Temperature Processing and Bio-Mimetic Molecular Photovoltaics.

Susan Trolier-McKinstry
Director
Materials Science and Engineering – Penn State
Thin- film integrated piezoelectrics and capacitors, pyroelectrics, transducers, ultrasound spectroscopy and imaging, tunable microwave dielectrics, non-linear dielectric and piezoelectric properties, reliability in thin films, low temperature processing

Clive Randall
Technical Director
Material Science and Engineering – Penn State
High temperature, and high voltage capacitors, reliability, multilayer and bulk piezoelectrics, supercapacitors, thermoelectrics, non-linear dielectrics, LTCC, microwave dielectrics, low partial pressure co-firing, interfaces

Ian Reaney
European Site Director
Materials Science and Engineering – USheffield
Solid State Chemistry of Perovskites

Administrative Staff

Patricia FolandMelissa Bailey
Materials Science and Engineering, NCSU
Email: [email protected]
[email protected]
Materials Research Institute, PSU
Email: [email protected]

 


Faculty

Arguelles, Andrea
Materials Science and Engineering – Penn State
Research Interests:  Wave propagation, Microstructure characterization, Energy Infrastructure, Nondestructive evaluation

Augustyn, Veronica
Materials Science and Engineering – NC State
Research Interests:  
Electrochemical interfaces, energy storage, electrocatalysis, transition metal oxides

Balke, Nina
Materials Science and Engineering – NC State
Research Interests: Atomic Force Microscopy

Boston, Rebecca
Materials Science & Engineering – UoS
Research Interests: Functional ceramics for capacitors, thermoelectrics and batteries

Chen, Long-Qing

Materials Science and Engineering – Penn State
Research Interests: Phase field modeling of piezoelectrics, dielectrics, and electrochemical systems

Choi, Sukwon
Mechanical and Nuclear Engineering – Penn State
Research Interests: Energy Systems, Thermal/Fluid Sciences

Dean, Julian
Materials Science and Engineering – UoS
Research Interest: Functional Materials, FE simulation, Impedance spectroscopy

Dickey, Elizabeth
Materials Science and Engineering – NC State/Carnegie Mellon
Research Interest: Point-defect equilibrium and transport in metal oxides; grain boundary and interfacial phenomena; nanomaterials; ceramic composites; and electron microscopy.

Dickey, Michael
Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering – NC State
Research Interest: High-K polymer capacitors, Flexible rf devices, Materials for flexible electronics

Freeman, Colin
Materials Science and Engineering – UoS
Research Interest: Computational Simulation, Atomic scale simulations, functional ceramics

Gao, Wei
Textile Engineering, Chemistry and Science – NC State
Research Interest: Two-dimensional nanomaterials and their applications in batteries and fuel cells, thin-film electrochemical capacitors and their integration with textiles

Hopkins, Doug
Electrical and Computer Engineering – NC State
Research Interests: Power electronics and power systems

Irving, Doug
Materials Science and Engineering – NC State
Research Interests: Multiscale, atomistic and first principles simulation

Jiang, Xiaoning
Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering – NC State
Research Interests: Energy storage, materials development, and electrochemistry

Jones, Jacob
Materials Science & Engineering – NC State
Research Interests: ferroelectricity, domain dynamics, x-ray diffraction and crystallography

Koh, Lenny
Operations Management, Director of Advanced Resource Efficiency Centre and Director of the Centre for Energy, Environment & Sustainability  – UoS
Research Interests: Supply Chain Management

Lanagan, Michael
Engineering Science and Mechanics – Penn State
Research Interests: Glass substrates, glass capacitors, microwave materials, meta-material patch antennas, dielectric metamaterials for MRI imaging

Maria, Jon-Paul
Materials Science and Engineering – Penn State
Research Interests: Thin-film dielectrics; microwave devices; thin-film integration science; electrodes and contacts; embedded dielectrics; physical vapor deposition

Narayanan, Ramakrishnan
Electrical Engineering and Computer Science – Penn State
Research Interests: Electromagnetics, microwave engineering, radar systems, communication systems, remote sensing.

Ounaies, Zoubeida
Mechanical Engineering – Penn State
Research Interests: Electro-active polymer composites

Pagan, Darren
Materials Science and Engineering – Penn State
Research Interest: Analysis & Characterization, Metals, Composites, Data Analytics, X-ray Scattering, Micromechanics, Advanced Manufacturing

Rajagopalan, Ramakrishnan
Electrical and Computer Engineering – Penn State
Research Interests: Microwave device modeling, Tunable RF devices, Microwave theory

Sinclair, Derek
Materials Chemistry – UoS
Research Interests: Impedance Spectroscopy, Elucidating the structure/electrical property relationships of functional oxides

Wang, Qing
Materials Science and Engineering – Penn State
Research Interests: Electro-active polymer chemistry

Xu, Cheryl
Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering – NC State
Research Interests: Advanced manufacturing of multifunctional materials, sensor design and manufacturing in harsh environments, process optimization, sensor-based health monitoring and control through artificial intelligence (AI)

Xu, Ruijuan
Materials Science and Engineering – NC State
Research Interests: Advanced thin-film synthesis and characterization techniques

Zhang, Xiangwu
Textile Engineering, Chemistry & Science – NC State
Research Interests: Multifunctional polymer, composite, fiber, and textile materials; Supercapacitors; Energy system design and fabrication

Zhang, Qiming
Electrical Engineering – Penn State
Research Interests: Electro-active polymers and ferroelectrics

 

Upcoming Meetings and Events

Center for Dielectrics and Piezoelectrics Fall 2026 Meeting

Job Opportunities

News

Center for Dielectrics and Piezoelectrics Fall 2026 Meeting

2024 Buessem Award Winner – Hirokazu Chazono

Wilhelm R. Buessem Award Presented to Eberhard Hennig

Congratulations Craig!

Congratulations Takao!

About

The Center for Dielectrics and Piezoelectrics is a national research center and consortium under the auspices of the industry/university cooperative research centers program at the National Science Foundation.

Contact

Center for Dielectrics & Piezoelectrics
​​​A joint collaboration between​
NC State University
​Penn State University
​University of Sheffield ​

Email: ​[email protected]
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