Tackling grand challenges in the materials science of liquids and glasses and non-equilibrium magnetism.
As part of the Wisconsin MRSEC’s Forward Fellows program, Education Directors Crone and Gillian-Daniel developed a workshop on Mentoring Up for the incoming graduate students. The workshop helps mentees define their goals for their mentoring relationships, recognize their roles and responsibilities in those relationships, develop strategies for effectively working with their mentors, and begin creating a network of mentors.
In October 2025, Wisconsin MRSEC researchers and the Interdisciplinary Education and Outreach Team (E/O) traveled to the University of Puerto Rico-Mayagüez (UPRM) for the 2025 PREM Annual Meeting. This visit underscored the longstanding partnership between the Wisconsin MRSEC and UPRM.
Through our strong outreach partnerships, MRSEC faculty, students and staff bring cutting edge research concepts to the public through research-inspired and tested activities that spark curiosity and exploration, and occasionally a little get messy! Research teams discuss the synthesis, structure, and properties of materials, utilizing hands-on inquiry-based activities to engage the public and K-12 audiences.
The Wisconsin MRSEC launched the Forward Fellows program in 2025 with 10 incoming graduate students from 9 departments. The program promotes students’ sense of self-efficacy in research and belonging at the university, and provides the opportunity for students to join the campus community and immerse themselves in research one month before their program’s official start date. Admitted students who would especially benefit from the experience were nominated by faculty in departments affiliated with the MRSEC.
The Wisconsin MRSEC has partnered with the Morgridge Institute for Research to bring scientific outreach to underserved communities. Afterschool programs, especially programs that serve economically disadvantaged students, can face major barriers to bringing students to campus for STEM outreach activities. To increase access, the Morgridge Institute has created Afterschool Expeditions, a program that brings UW-Madison research-inspired STEM outreach to students in their programs instead asking them to come to campus.
Wisconsin MRSEC Research Experience for Teachers 2022 fellow Lalitha Murali leveraged her connection with Jason Kawasaki in Wisconsin MRSEC IRG 2 and support from a Agris-Pine grant from the Society for Science to arrange science project mentors for 7th grade students from her Title I school in Milwaukee.
The National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Division of Materials Research selected the partnership between the University of Puerto Rico Mayagüez (UPRM) and the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Materials Research Science and Engineering Center (MRSEC) for funding through the Partnerships for Research and Education in Materials Research (PREM) program.
A recent article from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel highlights a project of an alum of the MRSEC Research Experience for Teachers (RET) program. Lalitha Murali is one of a handful of teachers selected to participate in the NASA/ Wisconsin Space Grant Consortium, Embedded Teacher Program in collaboration with the International Space Station National Lab and the Zero Gravity Corporation.