Schniepp Group Home
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.
News
| Oct 2024 | Phys.org posted the W&M News article on their Nanotechnology page featuring our recent Advanced Functional Materials paper. You can view the article online here. |  |
| Oct 2024 | Laura Grove from W&M News wrote a fantastic news article featuring our recent Advanced Functional Materials paper. You can view the article online here. |  |
| Oct 2024 | Press Release: The Cribellate Nanofibrils of the Southern House Spider: Extremely Thin Natural Silks with Outstanding Extensibility for Jake's recent Advanced Functional Materials paper. We were able to test the ultra-thin silk fibers of the southern house spider, and they have record-breaking extensibility! |  |
| Oct 2024 | New Publication: Advanced Functional Materials (2024) — Jake Silliman, Sean R. Koebley, and Hannes C. Schniepp* "The Cribellate Nanofibrils of the Southern House Spider: Extremely Thin Natural Silks with Outstanding Extensibility". We characterized the world's thinnest known natural spider silk and performed mechanical tests on these nanofibrils discovering a new world record in spider silk extensibility. | |
| Jun 2024 | Graduating Seniors: Congratulations to our graduating seniors Ryan Yoder, Will Kobos, Yun Ma, Izak Johnson, Grace Cha, James St. Martin, and Aaron Ringberg! |  |
| Apr 2024 | Grant: We were awarded an ARII grant alongside fellow collaborators Dr. Margaret Saha of WM Biology and Dr. Bongkeun Song of VIMS on the study and application of diatoms, photosynthetic algal microorganisms living in water. | |
| Mar 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. 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”. | |