| Scope |
Materials Science and Engineering sits at the foundation of nearly every grand challenge facing society, from sustainable energy and resilient infrastructure to advanced healthcare, secure manufacturing, and equitable access to technology. As the global pressures of climate change, resource scarcity, population growth, and geopolitical instability intensify, there is an urgent need to re-examine how materials research, innovation, and deployment can intentionally support global human flourishing. This symposium brings together invited leaders from academia, industry, and national laboratories to explore how materials innovation can be aligned with societal well-being, economic resilience, and environmental stewardship.
The session will highlight emerging materials strategies that prioritize sustainability, circularity, reliability, and scalability, while also addressing ethical considerations and workforce development. Emphasis will be placed on translational pathways that connect fundamental discovery to real-world impact on societal well-being, human health, and general quality of life. By fostering interdisciplinary dialogue and student engagement, this symposium aims to articulate a forward-looking vision for materials science as a discipline enabling a more resilient, responsible, and thriving global society.
Topics will include:
- Sustainable and circular materials systems targeted at conserving resources and reducing waste from the outset, including approaches that enable reuse, repair, recycling, and benign end-of-life outcomes.
- Infrastructure materials that enable climate-resilient, low-carbon systems through reductions in embodied carbon, enhanced durability, and adaptive performance, mitigating the environmental impacts of continued large-scale human development.
- Novel materials that enable high-efficiency, reliable energy generation, storage, and utilization by controlling structure-property relationships, minimizing energy loss and supporting scalability in an increasingly electrified world.
- Biomaterial advances in bioactivity, biocompatibility, minimization, and sensitivity to optimize human health, thereby improving therapeutic outcomes, continuous and non-invasive biosensing, and rapid, point-of-care diagnostic platforms.
- Future-focused manufacturing to enhance resilience, reliability, and security of global supply chains.
- Data-driven and AI-enabled approaches that accelerate material discovery, optimization, and deployment by linking data, computation, experiment, and manufacturing processes.
- Ethical frameworks and policy considerations that guide responsible materials development, use, and access across global society.
- Education and workforce development strategies that prepare the next generation of materials scientists and engineers to address societal challenges.
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