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 mission du centre est de réunir les professeurs de matériaux de Tufts dans un objectif commun : 1) Apporter une reconnaissance internationale à Tufts pour son excellence dans la recherche et l'enseignement des matériaux ; 2) Former la prochaine génération de chercheurs en matériaux dans le cadre d'un programme qui cultive l'excellence, et 3) Produire des recherches novatrices et hautement innovantes qui font progresser les connaissances fondamentales et appliquées dans le domaine des matériaux.

La science des matériaux est par nature un domaine interdisciplinaire qui doit son origine au siècle des Lumières, lorsque les scientifiques ont commencé à utiliser les outils de la pensée analytique issus de la chimie, de la physique et de l’ingénierie dans leur étude de la métallurgie et de la minéralogie. À l’ère moderne, les principaux sujets d’étude des scientifiques et des ingénieurs en matériaux se sont naturellement élargis pour inclure les matériaux de notre base technologique actuelle – c’est-à-dire les semi-conducteurs, les nanotechnologies et les biomatériaux – ainsi que les matériaux du futur.

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.
• Matériaux photoniques et électromagnétiques : un exemple typique de ces catégories serait les semi-conducteurs, qui sous-tendent tous nos dispositifs informatisés et émetteurs de lumière modernes. Ce domaine recoupe fortement la physique et le génie électrique et comprend des sujets tels que les supraconducteurs, la spintronique, les métamatériaux et les isolants topologiques. Il existe un autre croisement dans le domaine des matériaux fluorescents avancés pour l'étiquetage et la détection, en particulier dans les applications biomédicales.
• 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.