Yekaterina Epshteyn, associate professor of mathematics at the University of Utah, and her colleagues, Katayun Barmak of Columbia University, Chun Liu of the Illinois Institute of Technology, and Jeffrey Rickman of Lehigh University, have won a four-year $1.8 million award from the National Science Foundation (NSF) in the program category Designing Materials to Revolutionize and Engineer our Future (DMREF). DMREF is the primary program by which NSF participates in the Materials Genome Initiative (MGI) for Global Competitiveness, which recognizes the importance of materials science and engineering to the well-being and advancement of society.

The award will fund research to integrate grain growth experiments, data analytics, simulation and theory. The grant is jointly funded by the Division of Mathematical Sciences and the Division of Materials Research.

“Our team is extremely happy and grateful for the support provided by the NSF DMREF award,” said Epshteyn. “We’re thrilled to further pursue our interdisciplinary research, contribute to the training of the next-generation materials science and mathematics workforce as well as work towards increasing diversity and broadening participation within STEM.”

Read more about Epshteyn and her research studying how materials’ grain-level texture affect their properties here.