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Li's unanimous selection for the 2026 Victor K. LaMer Award from the American Chemical Society recognizes her work engineering nanoparticles that self-organize into precise three-dimensional arrangements, called superlattices, which can be designed to interact with light in controllable ways — with potential applications in biosensing, light-based computing and next-generation photonic devices.

Allison Lau is the sole representative of the Illinois materials department among the 2026 Knights of St. Patrick honorees in The Grainger College of Engineering. Lau displays the exceptional leadership and character this award embodies, having served as a director of the ESTAR program at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

Assistant Professor Chris Anderson's research on optically active spin qubits — quantum building blocks that interact with light — has been selected as the cover story of MRS Bulletin, the flagship publication of the Materials Research Society. His work establishes critical guidelines for designing the next generation of quantum materials, including a new "periodic table of quantum coherence" that serves as the field's first universal cookbook for building robust qubits for applications in quantum sensing, computing and communications.

Undergraduate and graduate students of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering , along with three esteemed alumnae, gathered in April 2026 for a night of celebration and honors. The event took place at the 

Associate Professor Hua Wang and his team have developed a novel mRNA cancer vaccine platform using a self-adjuvanting α-helical polypeptide that simultaneously delivers tumor-targeting mRNA into dendritic cells and activates them — achieving 83.3% tumor-free survival in a mouse lymphoma model, compared to 0% with previous mRNA vaccines. The platform, published in PNAS, offers a promising new direction for mRNA cancer vaccines beyond their current limitations.

Senior Lecturer Matt Goodman has partnered with the Siebel Center for Design's Assessment and Research team to redesign the materials department's capstone course sequence around human-centered design, giving students a concrete framework for tackling the open-ended challenges of engineering design. His approach has shown measurable gains in student confidence and supports evidence-based curriculum development.