Sunny Gupta, a third-year graduate student in Yakobson’s Group, has been awarded the Nettie S. Autrey Fellowship for 2019–2020. This award is given to one Rice graduate student in either the School of Natural Sciences or the School of Engineering who has demonstrated outstanding achievement and promise, and pays a stipend over the coming academic year.

Sunny’s research focuses on designing novel two-dimensional quantum materials for next-generation electronics. Using first-principles quantum theory methods and high-performance computing, he is tackling some of the challenging problems related to fundamental physics and materials realization for optoelectronics, spintronics, and quantum computing. All three areas constitute a current topic of intense research leading to next-generation electronics and are highly required to go beyond Moore’s law and to make faster, secure, and more power efficient computing devices.

Jincheng Lei, a fourth-year graduate student in Yakobson’s Group, has received the 2019 Franz and Frances Brotzen Fellowship Award from the MSNE Department. To honor Franz R. Brotzen, the Stanley C. Moore Professor Emeritus of Materials Science and a former dean of engineering, this fellowship was established by David Lee Davidson and his wife, Patricia, and to support an endowed fellowship for graduate students researching in the area of materials science.

Jincheng’s research focuses on the growth of 2D materials with specific focus on the reaction mechanisms during their growth. He uses DFT calculations and ab initio molecular dynamics simulations to provide detailed insights into the atomistic growth mechanism of MoS₂ monolayer. He also works on predicting novel properties and exploring potential applications of nanomaterials.

Nitant Gupta, a third-year graduate student in Yakobson’s Group, has received the 2018 Franz and Frances Brotzen Fellowship Award from the MSNE Department. To honor Franz R. Brotzen, the Stanley C. Moore Professor Emeritus of Materials Science and a former dean of engineering, this fellowship was established by David Lee Davidson and his wife, Patricia, and to support an endowed fellowship for graduate students researching in the area of materials science.

Nitant’s research focuses on the growth of 2D nanomaterials with special interest in grain boundary morphology, crystal shape evolution and also effects of substrate topography. He uses computational methods like molecular dynamics, phase-field simulations and interface tracking, to explore the fundamental aspects governing these phenomena. He also works on the nanomechanics of carbon-based materials such as graphene and carbon fibers.