Mark Hersam Wins 2024 Mid-Career Research Award

Northwestern Engineering’s Mark Hersam has won the 2024 Mid-Career Research Award from the Materials Research Society.

The Mid-Career Researcher Award recognizes exceptional achievements in materials research made by mid-career professionals. The award recipient must also demonstrate notable leadership in the materials area.

Hersam, Walter P. Murphy Professor of Materials Science and Engineering and chair of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, is an expert in nanomaterials, nanomanufacturing, scanning probe microscopy, nanoelectronics devices, biosensors, renewable energy, and quantum information science. His work includes the fabrication, characterization, and utilization of mixed-dimensional heterostructures that have the potential to revolutionize batteries, electronics, sensors, solar cells, and quantum computing. 

Hersam’s research has led to more effective and sustainable nanomaterials used in electronics, energy storage, and medicine. In February, he was elected to the National Academy of Engineering.

As director of the Northwestern University Materials Research Science and Engineering Center (NU-MRSEC), Hersam leads the center’s efforts to promote and foster world-class materials research, education, and outreach via active interdisciplinary collaborations and external partnerships in academia, industry, national laboratories, and museums. The NU-MRSEC maintains two synergistic interdisciplinary research groups, an active seed funding program, and commercialization, shared facilities, education, and outreach programs that disseminate NU-MRSEC research advances to the scientific community. In 2023, the center received a six-year, $18 million grant from the National Science Foundation.