Now, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has taken notice.

Deneé Lichtenberg was awarded the DOE’s Science Undergraduate Laboratory Internship, giving her the opportunity to further her research at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. This premier multidisciplinary research institution is advancing breakthroughs in science and technology to address national security challenges.

The opportunity brings her closer to achieving one of her biggest goals: working at a national laboratory, where she’ll collaborate with experienced researchers and learn how large-scale scientific projects are conducted.

Raised in Titusville, less than an hour away from Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½â€™s main campus, Lichtenberg says she always knew she’d attend Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½, especially given the strength of its engineering programs. What she didn’t yet know was how far that decision would take her.

“The ability to design and improve materials that impact a variety of fields really motivated me to pursue this discipline.”

She found her path in materials science — a field where physics, chemistry and engineering intersect — which would allow her to study materials from the atomic level to real-world applications.

“Ultimately, everything is made up of materials,� she says. “By changing a material’s structure or composition, you can drastically alter its performance. The ability to design and improve materials that impact a variety of fields really motivated me to pursue this discipline.�

That curiosity has evolved into something bigger: tackling the challenge of sustainably recovering rare earth metals that are vital to the future of energy and technology.

Advancing Sustainable Extraction

Over the past year in the , led by Assistant Professor of Engineering Kausik Mukhopadhyay, Lichtenberg has focused on a breakthrough approach that uses a naturally occurring protein, lanmoudulin.

“The protein can capture rare earth elements from dilute waste streams, and then a small temperature change can trigger the protein to release them so they can be collected,� she says. “This could create a more energy-efficient and environmentally friendly way to recover valuable materials.�

Those materials are critical to everything from renewable energy systems to manufacturing; however, traditional extraction methods rely heavily on large amounts of energy and chemicals sourced from acid mine drainage, coal byproducts and electronic waste.

Lichtenberg’s work points to a sustainable future.

“By developing protein-based systems that selectively capture and release these elements, we could potentially reduce the reliance on traditional extraction,� she says.

At Los Alamos National Laboratory, Lichtenberg will take that work further, designing modified proteins, producing them in the lab and testing how effectively they bind and release rare earth elements.

“It is a very exciting interdisciplinary project that combines protein engineering, materials science and sustainability,� she says. “I hope to continue this research after the internship ends.�

It Takes a Lab — and a Team

But just as impactful as the research has been, the environment that’s shaped it has been.

“Dr. Mukhopadhyay is a fantastic mentor who creates a very supportive and positive environment that encourages learning [both] in and out of the lab,� Lichtenberg says. “The graduate students in the lab have [also] played a huge role in … helping me learn new techniques and [understand] the experiments and science itself.�

Next, she plans to continue her journey as a Knight by pursuing a doctoral degree at Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½, advancing her research as a graduate member of the KM Lab.

For Lichtenberg, this internship isn’t the finish line — it’s just the beginning of reimagining how the world sources its most essential materials.

January is National Mentoring Month, celebrating the value of mentorship and its positive impact on individuals and communities.

The Florida Education Fund (FEF) unanimously selected Assistant Professor Kausik Mukhopadhyay as the recipient of the 2025-26 William R. Jones Outstanding Mentor Award, honoring faculty who demonstrate extraordinary commitment to mentoring and supporting McKnight Doctoral fellows.

It Began with a Nomination

For Mukhopadhyay, the recognition carries added meaning because it came from the people he prioritizes most: his students.

He was nominated by Amanda Bernard ’22, a first-year doctoral student, McKnight Doctoral fellow and member of Mukhopadhyay’s . A faculty member in materials science and engineering, Mukhopadhyay says the award came as a complete surprise, as he didn’t even know he was nominated.

“It’s special knowing that this is a student-nominated award,� Mukhopadhyay says. “Special thanks to my student, Ms. Amanda Bernard, for secretly nominating me for this award. This is also my first award for mentorship, so it is very special to me. I am so thankful to the FEF committee for this.�

Support That Opens Doors

Bernard’s path to doctoral study reflects the kind of trajectory Mukhopadhyay works to develop. She first joined the KM Lab as an undergraduate biology student and has remained a member for the past year. After earning her bachelor’s degree, she planned to pursue a master’s degree in materials science and engineering, until Mukhopadhyay — known simply as “Dr. K� to his students — encouraged her to aim for a doctoral degree.

“Rarely do you meet a professor whose passion is to see his students succeed without expecting anything back.” — Amanda Bernard ’22, Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½ doctoral student

Mukhopadhyay quickly began helping Bernard envision a future she hadn’t fully considered for herself. Within weeks of her joining the KM Lab, Bernard says that he was researching fellowships and internships to support her graduate journey, which led her to the McKnight Doctoral Fellowship.

“Once you join Dr. K’s lab, he always has your back,� Bernard says. “He defends his students, advocates for them and does the behind-the-scenes work most mentors never bother with.�

When Bernard learned she could nominate a professor for the Outstanding Mentor Award, it wasn’t a question of who; it was just a matter of winning.

“During my time at Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½, I have met many professors, some of whom have passions in research, teaching, social service and more,â€� Bernard says. “Rarely do you meet a professor whose passion is to see his students succeed without expecting anything back.â€�

Mentorship That Starts with Students

That belief defines Mukhopadhyay’s approach to mentorship. Over the years, he has mentored nearly 50 students, including visiting scholars, postdoctoral researchers and high school students. His advising philosophy has evolved over the years, shaped by what he’s learned from conferences, books and his personal experience.

“Every scholar is like a puzzle, and I love being able to serve as a resource to help connect the pieces for each one.” — Kausik Mukhopadhyay, Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½ assistant professor

Mukhopadhyay says the key to his success as a mentor lies in how he approaches his mentees. He views them as colleagues, not students, and listens to their thoughts and questions.

“I believe a faculty’s success depends on how successful their students are,� Mukhopadhyay says. “Every scholar is like a puzzle, and I love being able to serve as a resource to help connect the pieces for each one — whether by answering questions about a plan of work and training, pointing them to resources, helping them set and achieve academic and career goals, or simply offering words of encouragement and support when plans don’t get going.�

For Bernard, that support has been transformative. It reflects the power of Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½ — a university where mentorship fuels momentum and where faculty invest not only in solving the world’s greatest problems, but also in its people.

“Being intentional about creating or modifying my philosophy allows me to reflect on how I interact with [students], make space for their independence and improvement as needed, and contribute to society and the next generation of students,� Mukhopadhyay says.

For the students who walk into his lab, it often marks the moment they begin to see a bigger future and realize they’re capable of achieving it.

Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½ researchers aim to prevent such bleeding in potentially deadly situations with a new hemostatic spongelike bandage with antimicrobial efficacy that they recently developed and detailed in a newly published study in the journal Biomaterials Science.

“What happens in the field or during an accident is due to heavy bleeding, patients can die,â€� says Kausik Mukhopadhyay, assistant professor of materials science and engineering at Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½ and study co-author. “These fatalities usually occur in the first 30 minutes to one hour. Our whole idea was to develop a very simple solution that could have the hemostatic efficacy within that time. If you can save the patient, then the doctors and the nurses can then save the patient.â€�

Chemistry and Mechanisms

The method Mukhopadhyay and his team developed is called SilFoam as it’s more of a foam than a traditional bandage wrap. SilFoam is a liquid gel comprised of siloxanes (silicon and oxygen) that is delivered via a special two-chamber syringe which rapidly expands into a spongy foam upon exposure to each other within the wound in under one minute. The sponge applies pressure to restrict the hemorrhage at the delivery site while also serving as an antibacterial agent because of the silver oxide in it.

For every five milliliters of gel injected, you can expect an expansion of about 35 milliliters, Mukhopadhyay says.

“Anytime you have a profuse bleeding or bleeding, you want to press on top and stop the bleeding,� he says. “So, what we did here is actually the same thing. Instead of putting the hand, we injected it, and it creates a voluminous expansion.�

Mukhopadhyay and his collaborators found that their sponge also resulted in a more gentle removal.

“The adhesive property of this bandage is optimized so that when you take it out from the system, the smaller vessels don’t get ruptured, but it has the right amount of addition that can adhere to the muscles, veins and the arteries so that the blood doesn’t leak,â€� he says.

The sponge’s porosity and adhesion properties help it expand and seal the wound, allowing the body’s natural clotting process to take over, Mukhopadhyay says.

“During the reaction, it generates a little bit amount of heat that helps the process very fast,â€� he says. “On top of that, oxygen gas as part of the reaction’s byproduct, tries to come out. So instead of making it a cross-linkable rubber, it’s a soft sponge with a lot of internal porosity.â€�

Experimentation and Methods

Researching ways to address wounds requires special care and consideration to ensure no harm comes to test subjects, however, the researchers were able to bypass this by using a functional anatomic model to test their methods.

They used specially crafted mannequins designed with realistic blood vessels and wounds developed by a local company called SIMETRI to test their foam on in hopes the preliminary results were promising enough to proceed with further testing.

“One of the most important parts of this was that we used non-invasive models,� Mukhopadhyay says. “At this phase, we can get approvals and move forward to study the in vivo models. At this stage, there are no psychological effects on vets or surgeons either.�

The experimentation showed promise, especially when the researchers compared SilFoam to five other existing treatment methods.

They found that SilFoam had many advantages such as significantly less leakage, room-temperature storage versus requiring cold temperatures, ultimately lower cost of materials, little to no training requirements to use the syringe.

Pritha Sarkar, a graduate student in the materials science department at Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½, assisted with the experimentation.

“We had to check the reactivity of the two parts, because we wanted enough oxygen gas that can expand the sponge, but at the same time, we didn’t want the material to get too hot, because the reaction itself generates heat,â€� she says.

Sarkar texted the toxicity and strength of the materials as well to ensure it was safe for human bodies and durable yet not too rigid.

She also worked to make sure the composition of the SilFoam doesn’t harm the patient upon removal.

“If you have something that’s very sticky, like a bandage that you can slap onto your wound, that that will prevent blood from coming out, but if you want to remove that bandage, it can cause tissue damage or pain,â€� Sarkar says. “Our polymer system doesn’t stick to your skin, so it’s very easy to remove. We have a dressing that can expand onto your wound and seal it shut, but at the same time, once it’s done its job, you can remove it very easily.â€�

Reducing Infections and Next Steps

The antibacterial component of the research was through Melanie Coathup, a Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½ College of Medicine professor and director of the Biionix Cluster at Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½.

She works alongside material scientists and mechanical engineers with the goal of creating new medical technologies and therapies.

“My post-doc Dr. Abi Sindu Pugazhendhi and I worked alongside Dr. Mukhopadhyay and team to investigate the potency of his material and how well it stopped bacterial growth,� Coathup says. “We assessed bacteria that would typically infect a traumatic injury to the torso, and our results showed that the material was highly effective and so utilizing this material within the bandage system developed by Dr. Mukhopadhyay and confirming its efficacy as a novel hemostatic and antibacterial strategy is a great and important find.�

She says the opportunity to save lives as part of this research was extremely rewarding.

“The research is significant, because at the moment, there are no effective treatments available to treat people with these conditions, and new strategies are really needed,� Coathup says. “This means that teaming up with Dr. Mukhopadhyay to investigate a novel antibacterial sponge that could in the future provide life-saving treatment following major traumatic injury, was an absolute pleasure and right up my street.�

Mukhopadhyay also recently received a GAP award to assist in licensing SilFoam and deploying it. He says the next step is to collaborate with the University of Nebraska Medical Center and perform in vivo studies at their facilities.

Those interested in licensing this technology may .

Researcher’s Credentials

Mukhopadhyay is an assistant professor of materials science and engineering at Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½, and he directs the Hybrid Materials and Surfaces Laboratory. He received his doctoral degree in chemistry in 2004 from the National Chemical Laboratory in Pune, India. Mukhopadhyay joined Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½ in Fall 2017 as a senior lecturer and researcher.

Coathup joined Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½ in 2017 and is a professor of medicine and director of Director of the Biionix (Bionic Implants, Materials and Interfaces) Cluster. Prior to Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½, she was an associate professor at University College London where she also earned her doctoral degree in orthopedic implant fixation.

To help firefighters track their physiological response to heat stress, materials science and engineering Assistant Professor Kaitlyn Crawford will develop a wearable, wireless health monitor through a $1.5 million grant from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. The award is part of the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Fire Prevention and Safety grant program.

“I am elated and honored to be selected to lead a large project that has the potential to make a significant positive impact on the fire service community,� says Crawford, the principal investigator of the project. “I look forward to collaborating with the multidisciplinary team — including MSE Assistant Professor Kausik Mukhopadhyay, who is the co-principal investigator, and the subrecipients at the Illinois Fire Service Institute and Northwestern — and for the opportunity to interact directly with fire service members.�

For the next three years, Crawford and her team will develop the physiological status monitor (PSM), which will be ultra-thin, flexible and comfortable for firefighters to wear. The device would be placed directly on the skin to accurately monitor a firefighter’s vital signs and assess their physiological response to heat stress.

Crawford says the PSM will be used to identify correlations among heat stress and skin thermal activity near the skin surface for the first time using the proposed integrated methods. Current methods for evaluating heat stress require the aid of trained personnel to administer and only account for single exposure events. The PSM would resolve those issues, and the data collected could provide insight into the link between heat stress and the serious medical issues that plague firefighters.

“It is commonly understood that acute heat stress contributes to cardiovascular strain, may impact cognitive function, and likely increase skin permeability to carcinogens and other combustion products,� Crawford says. “However, it is unknown how continuous, reoccurring exposure to heat stress may be a predisposing risk factor for occupational accidents, cardiac events and cancers over a firefighter’s career.�

The research team expects to deliver the PSM to market within the next five to seven years. Crawford says the health monitor could also be used by law enforcement, agricultural workers, astronauts, military personnel and even citizens in warm climates or those exposed to extreme weather conditions.

Mukhopadhyay says the monitor could be especially helpful to people in Florida, since the state has warmer weather compared to many other parts of the country.

“Ideally, Floridians could wear the tool in future to monitor their heat stress exposure during daily outdoor activities — especially in the summer months,� he says.

Crawford joined Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½ in 2017 as an assistant professor of materials science and engineering and a member of the Biionix faculty cluster. She also has courtesy appointments in the Department of Chemistry and the NanoScience Technology Center. Crawford’s research focuses on identifying new materials for sensing applications that are environmentally sustainable. She completed her doctorate in chemistry from the University of Maryland, College Park in 2015 and received a master’s in chemistry from North Carolina State University in 2011. She has received more than 10 awards related to research and teaching.

Mukhopadhyay is an assistant professor of materials science and engineering, and he directs the Hybrid Materials and Surfaces Laboratory, where his team utilizes fundamentals of materials, chemistry, physics, medicine and engineering to develop solutions for a multitude of exciting research problems related to surfaces, coatings, electrochemistry, corrosion, catalysis and wound healing solutions for acute trauma. Mukhopadhyay has a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree in chemistry from Calcutta University, and he received his doctorate in chemistry from the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research – National Chemical Laboratory.