Jones Wins TMS Scholarship

The Minerals, Metals & Materials Society (TMS) has awarded Department of Materials Science and Engineering (MSE) junior Ben Jones its Materials Processing & Manufacturing Division Scholarship.

Each year, TMS offers two of the $2500 scholarships to sophomores or juniors majoring in metallurgical or materials science and engineering who focus on manufacturing, including product design, process control, production, and applied research. The recipients, known as MPMD Scholars, are invited to the society's annual meeting to accept their awards, and receive up to $500 for their travel expenses.

"Attending the TMS conference will help me to further understand what a career in MSE entails, and I’m very excited to have the opportunity to do so," says Jones.

From 2010-2011, Jones conducted undergraduate research in MSE professor and chair Robert M. Briber's research group, where he worked under MSE research associate Dr. Xin Zhang on a project studying the pattern formation and alignment of a block copolymer.

"This technology could have applications in the nanopatterning of microelectronics, making their manufacture more efficient and faster," Jones explains. A paper he co-authored with Zhang and other group members on the work, "Poly(2-vinylnaphthalene)-block-poly(acrylic acid) Block Copolymer: Self-Assembled Pattern Formation, Alignment, and Transfer into Silicon via Plasma Etching," was recently published in Macromolecular Chemistry and Physics.

This summer, Jones can be found studying semiconductors at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).

"[I'm] trying to branch out," he says, "and experience the various fields of materials science in preparation for starting my own research as a graduate student."

Published June 24, 2011