Celebrating 20 years of supporting the advancement of The Ohio State University's materials‐allied research enterprise, the Institute for Materials and Manufacturing Research (IMR) recently convened researchers from across the U.S. at its annual Ohio State Materials and Manufacturing Conference (MMC) to celebrate the work and achievements in research and innovation at the university.
This year’s event, which ran May 6-7, brought together hundreds of researchers from academia, industry and government labs. This is the 15th MMC event held by IMR as an opportunity to connect Ohio State’s materials and manufacturing community, celebrate their accomplishments, and explore innovative research.
MMC ‘26 included IMR’s keynote address, a student poster session, and technical talks organized by leading research centers at Ohio State. Across the sessions, more than two dozen Ohio State researchers and external speakers shared their work, with topics chosen to reflect the breadth of the university’s materials and manufacturing community:
- Computation and AI for Materials & Manufacturing
- Digital Intelligence and Control for Materials and Manufacturing
- Ultrashort Pulse Lasers and Ultrafast Dynamics, Applications in Materials and Manufacturing
- Translating Fundamentals to Manufacturing for Next-Generation Batteries
- Advanced Compound Semiconductor for Electronics and Photonics
“Every year, the quality and breadth of leading-edge research presented by our students and faculty across IMR’s network of centers simply blows me away! Having world leaders from Ohio State and elsewhere speaking and sharing their work about AI + Materials research and innovation during the opening keynote and plenary sessions really set the tone for the MMC,” said IMR Executive Director Steven Ringel, the Neal A. Smith Endowed Chair in Electrical and Computer Engineering and Senior Associate Vice President for Research.
“I especially want to thank our corporate sponsors, Nippon Sanso, the Midwest Microelectronics Consortium, nextCoatema and Aixtron, whose generosity really made the MMC a special event, especially as we celebrated the IMR’s 20th anniversary as a university institute.”
MMC ’26 kicked off with a keynote address from Ju Li, the Carl Richard Soderberg Professor of Power Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His talk, entitled “AI and the Future of Materials Research,” focused on how artificial intelligence and self‑driving labs are impacting R&D, particularly in the development and implementation of new materials for clean energy research, while also addressing the opportunities and risks ahead.
