Multi-University Research Group to Investigate Complex Ceramics for Hypersonics
Assistant Professor of Materials Science and Engineering Scott McCormack of the University of California, Davis, is part of a collaborative research team that was awarded funding from the Department of Defense, or DOD, Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative, or MURI, for the 2024 fiscal year.
The highly competitive program has made contributions to current and future military capabilities and produced numerous commercial sector applications by supporting multi-disciplinary teams to generate collective insights, facilitating the growth of cutting-edge technologies to address DOD's challenges. McCormack's team is one of 30 selected and will receive $7.5 million in funding over five years for their research project.
McCormack and his lab will participate in a project titled "Compositionally Complex Ceramics for Hypersonics via Knowledge-Guided Ceramization," led by Kathy Lu, professor and chair of the Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. They are joined by researchers from Rice University, Northwestern University and Pennsylvania State University.
"This cross-fertilization of ideas can accelerate research progress to enable more rapid scientific breakthroughs and hasten the transition of basic research funding to practical applications," said Dr. Bindu Nair, director of the Basic Research Office in the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering. "The [MURI] program is a cornerstone of [DOD's] basic research portfolio and a strong contributor to its legacy of scientific impact."