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Materials for a Sustainable World. In the nano & biomaterials lab, we investigate and develop multi-functional high-performance materials of the next-generation. We get inspiration from biological materials and structures.

Principal Investigator is Prof. Hannes Schniepp.

Our Lab in the Media

Highlights

News

March 2024 Conference: We will be presenting at the TMS 2024 conference in Orlando, FL on bio-inspired materials based on silk and diatoms! Professor Schniepp will be speaking on March 4th at 8:30am on “Strong and Tough Tape-based Quasi-composites” and March 7th at 2pm on “Measuring and Calibrating Interfacial Forces at Hard and Soft Interfaces via Force Spectroscopy for Quantitative Materials Description”. Meanwhile, Aidan Lucas will be presenting a poster on “Carbon Negative Deeply Structured Hierarchical Ceramics Derived From Biogenic Silica” on March 5th at 5:30pm.

Link to the TMS 2024 Technical Program

Apr 2023 Graduation: We had a third and final Ph.D. defense this spring by Avishi Abeywickrama! Her dissertation was titled, “Direct Measurements of Interfacial Interactions of 2D Materials”. Excellent job!
Apr 2023 Graduation: Ben Skopic defended his Ph.D. dissertation on, “Tape-Based Structural Metamaterials”. He will be going on to work for the Institute for Defense Analyses (IDA) in Alexandria, VA. Way to Go!
Apr 2023 Graduation: Samantha Applin successfully defended her dissertation titled, “Investigation of Reversibly Assembling Materials Using Force Spectroscopy”. She is part of the NASA Pathways Program working with the Langley Advanced Materials and Processing Branch. Congratulations!
Mar 2023 Ph.D. candidates Ben Skopic and Avishi Abeywickrama presented their work at William & Mary's Graduate & Honors Research Symposium.
Mar 2023 Hannes Schniepp traveled to San Diego, CA to attend and present at the 2023 TMS meeting. He gave two presentations titled, “From Molecular Interactions to Macroscopic Properties: Studying Protein-based Structural Materials Across the Scales” and “Bio-Inspired Composites and Metamaterials from High-aspect Ratio Ribbons”.
Dec 2022 New Book Chapter: in Surface-Functionalized Ceramics: For Biotechnological and Environmental Applications (2022) — Hannes C. Schniepp and Laura Treccani.
"Chapter 4: Atomic Force Spectroscopy for Imaging and Chemical Analysis of Ceramic Surfaces".
Nov 2022 Hannes Schniepp traveled to Boston, MA to attend and present at the 2022 MRS Fall meeting. He presented twice on our spider silk projects in the Bioinspired and Biological Polymers symposium: “Reverse Engineering Spider Silk by Disassembly and Assembly” and “Protein Secondary Structure in Spider Silk Nanofibrils”.
Nov 2022 Graduation: Dr. Dinidu Perera graduated with his Ph.D. in Applied Science. His dissertation is titled, "Structure, Formation, and Mechanics of Nanofibrillar Spider Silk." Congratulations!
Oct 2022 Popular Science interviewed Hannes Schniepp for an article on the exciting research being done across all silk fields. The article focuses on new advances in spinning silkworm silk but Hannes is featured as the spider silk expert. You can view the article online Here.
Sep 2022 William & Mary's student newspaper, The Flat Hat wrote a nice piece paper titled, “Biomaterials lab pioneers study of spider silk applications, publishes three groundbreaking papers”. You can view the article on the Flat Hat's website Here.
Aug 2022 New Student: The W&M Nano & Biomaterials lab takes on Jake Silliman as a PhD student. Jake completed his undergrad at W&M in 2022 with a BS in Physics EPAD, the new engineering focused physics degree.
Aug 2022 Ben Swenson from the Daily Press wrote a fantastic newspaper article featuring our recent Nature Communications paper. You can view the article online Here.
Jul 2022 The Williamsburg Yorktown Daily wrote a great article featuring our recent Nature Communications paper titled, “The Itsy-Bitsy Spiders: William & Mary Study Reveals Secrets of Spider Silk”. You can view the article on the WYDaily website Here.
Jul 2022 Press Release: Super Strong Spider Silk Inspired Tape Junctions for Ben's recent Materials Horizons paper. Using inspiration from recluse spider webs, we describe how make an amazingly strong junction using any tape!
Jul 2022 New Publication: Materials Horizons (2022) — Skopic, Koebley, and Schniepp*.
"Self-strengthening Tape Junctions Inspired by Recluse Spider Webs". When closely observing the loop junctions of recluse silk, we found that the spider implement a specific tape–tape contact geometry to generate impressive strength. We replicated this strength of this junction with ordinary Scotch tape and developed a general model the failure mechanics to be applied to any tape system.

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public.txt · Last modified: 2024/02/18 12:53 by lucas