Modern metallurgist

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) professor Cem Tasan, an Abdul Latif Jameel Water and Food Systems Lab (J-WAFS) principal investigator and 2023 Solutions grantee, discusses his work in materials science and novel metals with MIT School of Engineering. Cem's work on self-healing and resetting metals leverages techniques such as in situ experiments and bulge tests to examine the microstructure characteristics of alloys he has designed.

"We want lighter cars, but at the same time we want cars that are safer. We want planes that have longer lifetime and can carry more people in a single run. But on top of it, there are also environmental challenges and this is one of the things that we are focus[ed] on. If we want to cut down carbon dioxide emissions, we have to rely also on material solutions. In other words, we have to find ways of using less metals and we have to find ways of using metals that go for a longer time," Cem says.