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Rebecca Gallivan
Assistant Professor of Engineering
Overview
Rebecca Gallivan is a materials scientist and engineer focusing on understanding micro- and nano-scale material phenomena and developing nanoscale additive manufacturing techniques. Her work looks to push new frontiers in advanced functional and structural materials for nanotechnology and expand fundamental knowledge of nanostructured materials for engineering and design applications. She received her BS in materials science and engineering from MIT and her PhD in materials science from Caltech before working as a postdoctoral scholar at ETH Zurich in Switzerland.
Research Interests
Nanostructuring; additive manufacturing; nanomechanics; structural materials; functional materials; MEMs/ NEMs
Education
- BS, Materials Science and Engineering, MIT 2017
- MS, Material Science, Caltech 2022
- PhD, Materials Science, Caltech 2023
Awards
- Fall MRS Communications Early Career Distinguished Presenter, 2026
- Demetriades–Tsafka–Kokkalis Prize (nanotechnology), 2023
- Amazon AI4Science Fellow, 2022
- Kavli Nanoscience Institute Catalyst Award, 2022
Professional Activities
- Organizer, Gordon Research Seminar: Solid State Studies in Ceramics, 2024
- Organizer, Gordon Research Seminar: Physical Metallurgy, 2025
- Organizer, TMS Symposium on Nano and Micro Additive Manufacturing
- Guest Editor for Special issue: Defect Interactions at Grain Boundaries and Surfaces in Journal of Applied Physics
Selected Publications
- Saccone MA*, Gallivan RA*, Narita K, Yee DW, Greer JR. (2022) "Additive manufacturing of micro-architected metals via hydrogel infusion." Nature. 612: 685–690.
- Tran TT, Gallivan RA, Greer JR. (2025) "Multiscale microstructural and mechanical characterization of Cu–Ni binary alloys reduced during hydrogel infusion-based additive manufacturing (HIAM)." Small. 21(36).
- Porenta N*, Gallivan RA*, Galvis Melo J, Spolenak R. (2025) "Electrohydrodynamic redox printing vs magnetron sputtering: Enhancing hardness of nanoporous silver with twinning and structural order." Materials & Design. 253: 113909.
- Gallivan RA, Manser J, Michelini A, Toncich N, Abando Beldarrain N, Vockenhuber C, Muller A, Spolenak R, Gallinski H. (2024) "Physical properties and thermal stability of zirconium platinum nitride thin films." Applied Physics Letters. 125: 221901.
- Abando N, Gallivan RA, Toncich N, Muller A, Spolenak R. (2025) "Micromechanical insights into sinter-based additively manufactured NiTi with Nb as a sintering aid." Advanced Engineering Materials.
- Ciotti F, Cimolato A, Gozzi N, Palopoli P, Brugnoli L, Katic Secerovic N, Gallivan RA, Shokurov A, Menon C, Weichart J, Delgado-Martinez I, Song W, Zanos S, Navarro X, Raspopovic S. (2025) "From in-silico optimized microfabrication to experimental validation: Engineering a tridimensional epi-intraneural interface." Advanced Functional Materials. e22367.
- Toncich N, Schwarz F, Gallivan RA, Gillon J, Spolenak R. (2025) "Composition effects on Ni/Al reactive multilayers: A comprehensive study of mechanical properties, reaction dynamics, and phase evolution." Journal of Applied Physics. 137(17): 175107.
- Ocana-Pujol JL, Gallivan RA, Dominguez Ordonez RC, Porenta N, Muller A, Vockenhuber C, Spolenak R, Gallinski H. (2024) "Measuring the multifunctional properties of MoS₂ across the amorphous-crystalline transition using colorimetric sensing." Physical Review B. 110.
- Gallivan RA, Aitken ZH, Chamoun-Farah A, Zhang YW, Greer JR. (2023) "Microstructure-driven mechanical and electromechanical phenomena in additively manufactured nanocrystalline zinc oxide." Nanotechnology. 35: 065706.
- Zhang W, Li Z, Dang R, Tran TT, Gallivan RA, Gao H, Greer JR. (2023) "Suppressed size effect in nanopillars with hierarchical microstructures enabled by nanoscale additive manufacturing." Nano Letters. 23(17): 8162–8170.
- Kim MW*, Lifson ML*, Gallivan RA, Greer JR, Kim BJ. (2022) "Enabling durable ultralow-k capacitors with enhanced breakdown strength in density-variant nanolattices." Advanced Materials. 35(6): 2208409.
