Armin VahidMohammadi: Three-time winner of Science as Art

In Materials Connect, blogger Tianyu Liu of Virginia Tech interviews Armin VahidMohammadi of Auburn University about his experience with digital art. “It is the third time Armin wins, and he is the only graduate student who achieves this hat trick as the first and leading author of the artwork,” Liu writes, referring to the MRS Science as Art competition. Liu writes:

“Armin, and his brother, Aidin, managed to teach themselves how to work with different 3D software by reading the manuals and instructions of them. ‘Aidin was so passionate in 3D artworks and we always were discussing new things. I am sure we could never do what we can do today without learning and working together,” Armin says.” Read more 

 

(Credit: Courtesy of Armin VahidMohammadi at Auburn University, U.S., and the Materials Research Society)

A colored SEM image of a 2D V₂CT_x particle showing similarities to the head of an imaginary giant turtle. V₂CT_x is synthesized by selective etching Al atoms from V₂AlC and is a promising electrode material for energy-storage devices.

Multidisciplinarity key to solving today’s problems

Hortense Le Ferrand, the MRS Bulletin Postdoctoral Publication Prize recipient from Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, writes a blog post to Materials Connect on research reported at the 2019 MRS Spring Meeting in Phoenix, Ariz. that “illustrates well why and where multidisciplinarity can foster scientific breakthroughs and technological innovations.”

“For example,” she writes:

“during the characterization of materials at the nanoscopic level, in 3D, and while performing a dynamic motion or a chemical reaction, do we not need to have excellent detectors with ultra-high resolution? To use the new biomarker sensing strategies in a real-life application that can really make a difference in population with limited access to health care, do we not need the advice of medical doctors, health workers and the target population as well? To develop coatings for our boats that prevent the adhesion of barnacles on their hull, do we not need first to understand at a biological, molecular and mechanical levels, how they attach underwater to flat surfaces?” Read more