![]() The real product and output of what I do here is not just the science and tech advancements and patents, it’s the students that go on to industry or academia or wherever else they choose, and then change the world in their own ways.” “Now I view a major component of my job as enabling my students to be successful. I’ve been successful, and I have the opportunity to pursue research I’m passionate about,” he says. Ultimately, Macfarlane believes mentoring the next generation of researchers is as important as publishing papers. He also recently redesigned a course in which he teaches graduate students how to be educators by learning how to do things like write a syllabus, communicate with and mentor students, and design homework assignments. He’s taught three undergraduate chemistry courses at MIT, including his current course, 3.010 (Synthesis and Design of Materials), which introduces sophomores to the fundamental concepts necessary for designing and making their own new structures in the future. Eventually, he believes his research will lead to new ways of making products with fine-tuned and predetermined combinations of desired electrical, mechanical, optical, and magnetic properties.Īlong the way Macfarlane, who earned tenure last year, has also committed himself to mentoring students. This is the goal of our research: Our lab is about enabling the materials needed to develop new technologies, rather than focusing on just the end products.”īy uncovering design principles for nanocomposites, which are materials made from mixtures of polymers and nanoparticles, Macfarlane’s career has gradually evolved from designing specks of novel materials to building functional objects you can hold in your hand. ![]() In many cases, we simply don’t know how to make them yet. In our lab’s research efforts, we often have to educate people that the reason we can’t do X, Y, or Z right now is because we don’t have the materials needed to enable those technological advances. He adds, “For a lot of industries or types of engineering, materials synthesis is treated as a solved problem - making a new device is about using the materials we already have, in new ways. “I want to make materials that can be functional and useful, and I want to do so by figuring out the basic principles that go into making new structures at many different size ranges.” “I like to make things,” Macfarlane says. Cook Associate Professor in Materials Science and Engineering, is driven by a more fundamental desire. Others are motivated by tackling questions faced by a given industry. Some researchers are driven by the quest to improve a specific product, like a battery or a semiconductor.
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