Giving Opportunities

MSE offers world-class training designed to prepare future generations of materials scientists to lead cutting-edge research towards solving some of society’s most pressing issues. There are many ways you can help us continue to offer exceptional academic and research programs. Please review our current list of priorities and consider making a gift.

Graduate Education

  • Ph.D. fellowships: our goal is to provide funding for every first-year Ph.D. student. Creation of an endowment would support 13 – 14 Ph.D. students per year.
  • Teaching Assistant awards: funds will be used for annual cash prizes recognizing the top two graduate TA’s each academic year.

Undergraduate Education

  • Modernize and upgrade equipment in the MSE instructional laboratories: funds will be used to purchase a variety of new equipment (examples include Keithley source meters, a deionized water filtration system, a high temperature furnace, a scanning electron microscope, a manual probe station, experimental stations for characterization of nanoscale devices and materials) which will dramatically increase the capability and functionality of our undergraduate lab courses.
  • Undergraduate lab experimentation support: funds will be used to cover annual expendables costs associated with conducting course experiments.
  • Travel funds: funds will support undergraduates to attend national conferences and other important career development events.
  • Junior class awards: funds will be used for annual cash prizes recognizing the top four to six members (academic achievement) of each junior class.

Faculty

  • Endow the Director’s position in MSE.
  • Endow faculty positions in Energy Production and Storage, Electronics and Photonics, Bioinspired Materials and Systems, and Green Technologies.

Facilities

  • Undergraduate instructional lab renovation: funds will support the renovation of the Bard Hall instructional laboratory to modernize and meet space challenges associated with growing class sizes.

Program Support

  • Name and endow two lecturer positions: funds will support a lecturer to teach an MSE design course each year plus a lecturer to teach the MSE senior lab course each year.
  • Undergraduate lab coordinator position: funds will be used towards salary for this essential role which supports all MSE undergraduate lab instruction; the coordinator prepares and maintains all course experimentation along with all hardware and machinery in the undergraduate instructional lab.
  • Innovation prize for postdocs/graduate students: funds will be used to award an annual “excellence in research” prize to a member of the MSE research community.
  • Unrestricted gifts to Directors Fund: funds will be used by the MSE Director to address areas of critical need.

For more information on these or any other giving opportunities, please contact Jack Thompson, MSE’s Alumni Affairs and Development Officer, at 212-351-7678 or jat355@cornell.edu .