Despina Louca, with her colleagues at UT Austin, received one of the three MIRT awards made by the National Science Foundation this year among high competition.

The Materials Interdisciplinary Research Team (MIRT) grant, which was awarded for the first time this year and is managed by the Materials Research Science and Engineering Center program at NSF, recognizes teams that demonstrate a strong interdisciplinary research program.

Six university faculty members from The University of Texas at Austin — whose expertise include physics, mechanical engineering, chemical engineering, and electrical and computer engineering — will work collaboratively on the grant with University of Virginia Professor Despina Louca, in the department of Physics.

The nearly $3 million three-year grant from the NSF is to study materials that are vital to the development of a broad range of technologies, including everything from cell phones to large-scale energy storage.

Led by Professor Arumugam Manthiram, the research will team faculty and students from across disciplines. The goal of their research is to gain a profound fundamental understanding of the physics and chemistry involved in controlling the properties of transition-metal oxides, a complex class of materials essential for many modern technologies.

For more, see
http://www.engr.utexas.edu/news/7042-tminsfgrant