Tufts University - School of Engineering

MSc in Materials Science and Engineering

Materials scientists study how the history of a material influences its structure and properties, advancing understanding in research areas that include metallurgy, solid-state physics, and biomaterials.

Tufts faculty have strengths in soft, structural, electronic, computational, and nanomaterials. From drug delivery to semiconductors to nano-enabled membranes for water treatment, materials science and engineering at Tufts offer graduate students a wide array of opportunities to study and develop materials that will change the world.

Materials Science and Engineering M.S. Program

The master’s degree in Materials Science and Engineering is an interdisciplinary program, with students pursuing classes across multiple departments to achieve mastery in the field.

Tufts Interdisciplinary Advanced Materials (TIAMAT) Center

The Tufts Interdisciplinary Advanced Materials (TIAMAT) Center unifies more than four dozen Tufts faculty members whose technical interests include materials science. They come from nine departments across the Schools of Engineering and Arts & Sciences. While materials research has been a long-time significant strength at Tufts, the lack of a unifying center has caused it to fly under the radar. With the launch of TIAMAT, we are now able to pursue the fruits of our shared strength.

La misión del centro es unir al profesorado de materiales de Tufts con un propósito común: 1) Brindar reconocimiento internacional a Tufts por su excelencia en investigación y educación de materiales; 2) Educar a la próxima generación de investigadores de materiales en un programa que cultive la excelencia, y 3) Producir investigaciones novedosas y altamente innovadoras que avancen en el conocimiento básico y aplicado en materiales.

La ciencia de los materiales es innatamente un campo interdisciplinario que debe su origen a la era de la iluminación, cuando los científicos comenzaron a utilizar las herramientas del pensamiento analítico de la química, la física y la ingeniería en sus estudios de la metalurgia y la mineralogía. En la era moderna, los principales temas de estudio de los científicos e ingenieros de materiales se han expandido naturalmente para incluir los materiales de nuestra base tecnológica actual (es decir, semiconductores, nanotecnología y biomateriales), además de mirar hacia los materiales del futuro.

In recent years, there has been considerable growth and excitement in several areas of materials science, all of which are already represented by research here at Tufts. These areas include:

• Nanomaterials: The study of material in which the common descriptive unit of size is 1-100 nm. Materials with nanometer-scale features tend to have unique mechanical, catalytic, and electro-optical properties. A wide variety of aspects of this topic are of interest to the researchers in the center. Applications vary from nano-enabled membranes for water treatment to nanostructured devices for novel electronic devices.
• Soft-materials and bio-materials: This area includes any bulk material, construct, or surface that interacts with or is composed of a biological system. While this field is young, it has seen explosive growth and includes overlap with medicine, tissue engineering, biology, and chemistry. Biomaterials are used today for drug delivery, surgery, and dental applications.
• Materiales fotónicos y electromagnéticos: un ejemplo arquetípico de estas categorías serían los semiconductores, que sustentan todos nuestros modernos dispositivos computarizados y absorbentes/emisores de luz. Este campo tiene una fuerte superposición con la física y la ingeniería eléctrica e incluye temas como superconductores, espintrónica, metamateriales y aislantes topológicos. Hay una nueva transición hacia el área de los materiales fluorescentes avanzados para etiquetado y detección, en particular, en aplicaciones biomédicas.
• Computational materials science: With the vast improvements in computing power over the last several decades, simulating complex materials systems has become possible. This allows for the modeling of materials at all length scales using methods such as kinetic Monte Carlo, density functional theory, and molecular dynamics.

TIAMAT seeks bright young minds to join us in our M.S. and Joint-Ph.D. programs and to help us take the lead in establishing the next chapter in materials research.