Passion and purpose: Meet the researchers changing tomorrow today

The National Science Foundation's Faculty Early Career Development Program, or CAREER, awards grants to “early-career faculty who have the potential to serve as academic role models in research and education.” This series highlights Michigan State University’s 2021 recipients of the prestigious NSF CAREER grant awards and their leading-edge research.

Story

Songqiao “Shawn” Wei

Imaging Earth’s structure

Wei, an Endowed Assistant Professor of Geological Sciences in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences in the College of Natural Science, wants to understand Earth’s tectonic plate activity specifically at subduction zones where earthquake and volcanic activity occurs.

Story

Muhammad Rabnawaz

Confronting the plastics problem

Rabnawaz, an assistant professor in the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources, is cutting complexities to make valuable polymers that are easy to recycle.

Story

Kyla Dahlin

Unraveling a climate change mystery with the help of trees

Dahlin, an assistant professor in the Department of Geography, Environment and Spatial Sciences in the College of Social Science, maps how much carbon dioxide different tree types capture for better climate modeling.

Story

Zhaojian Li

Connecting vehicles for safer and more efficient mobility

Li, an assistant professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, is working to improve safety by using the power of the cloud and the data cars are already collecting.

Story

Arjun Krishnan

Organizing the ocean of public data using machine learning

Krishnan, an assistant professor in the in the Department of Computational Mathematics, Science and Engineering, is developing a way to standardize data and make it searchable.

Story

Alexandra Zevalkink

Exploring space-age materials

Zevalkink, an assistant professor in the Chemical Engineering and Materials Science Department in the College of Engineering, is probing materials known as thermoelectrics that help power space exploration.

Story

Shanelle Foster

Creating innovative and green electric motor designs

Foster, an assistant professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering in the College of Engineering, is using 3D printing and some inspiration from nature to design electric motors that are breaking design boundaries and are good for the environment.

Story

Yuan Wang

Understanding the cause of infertility

Wang, an assistant professor in the Department of Animal Science within the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources, is studying primordial germ cells and their role in human fertility.

Story

Annick Anctil

Making solar energy even greener

Anctil, an associate professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, is analyzing how we make, implement and dispose of solar cells to make sure consumers end up with the most sustainable product.

Story

Dong Zhao

Building more sustainable communities

Zhao, an an assistant professor in the School of Planning, Design and Construction, is designing ways to retrofit old buildings for large-scale energy efficiency by integrating human behaviors.