Research Quick Takes

Piezoelectric Energy Harvesting

Andrew Closson Th'23, Research Associate Zhe Xu, Daniella Kubiak '20, Billy Jin Th'23, and Professor John Zhang are co-authors of "All-Electrospun Piezoelectric Energy Harvesting for Leadless Pacemakers" published in ACS Applied Electronic Materials, with an image by Thayer Graphic Designer Patricio Sarzosa accepted for the cover.

Global Conference on Osseointegration

Hixon Lab member and PhD Innovation fellow (surgical track) Adelaide Cagle attended the Global Collaborative Congress on Osseointegration in Charlotte, NC. Hers was chosen from a large group of abstracts for an oral presentation entitled "Tissue-Engineered Combination Construct for Osseointegration Support" and complimented as one of the best presentations at the conference.

Manuka Honey for Wound Healing

Hydrogels and cryogels arranged as a function of percent MH.

Karina Mitchell '23 is first-author on a paper published in Gels on a standard of practice for incorporating the antibacterial properties of Manuka honey into tissue-engineered scaffolds and evaluating biofilm reduction. Co-authors include research assistant Sreejith Panicker and Calista Adler '26.

Biomedical Engineering Society Annual Meeting

The Hixon Lab attended the national Biomedical Engineering Society (BMES) Annual Meeting in Seattle, WA. PhD student Peter Bertone and Research Assistant Sree Panicker gave oral presentations on bone oncology and electrically-stimulated bone formation, respectively. PhD students Adelaide Cagle and Levi Olevsky gave poster presentations on dermal adhesion and craniofacial reconstruction, respectively.

Metastructure-Based Pressure Sensors

PhD students Huan Zhao and Julia Huddy, and professors Yan Li and Will Scheideler are coauthors of "Rational Design of 3D-Printed Metastructure-Based Pressure Sensors" published in Advanced Engineering Materials. The study found that metastructure architecture design can lead to substantial expansion of the sensing range. The practical application of this technology was demonstrated in an undergraduate ENGS 33 bridge project.

Best Paper Award

Professor Vikrant Vaze at the INFORMS annual meeting in Phoenix.

Professor Vikrant Vaze received the INFORMS AAS Best Paper Award this week at the INFORMS annual meeting in Phoenix. The paper entitled, "Choice-Based Airline Schedule Design and Fleet Assignment: A Decomposition Approach," proposes a "decomposition approach based on partitioning the flight network into smaller subnetworks by exploiting weak dependencies in network structure."

Advancing Sustainable Magnets

The Baker and Hautier research groups co-authored, "The phase transformation behavior of Mn-Al rare-earth-free permanent magnets" published in the Journal of Magnetism and Magnetic Materials. Authors include PhD students Thomas Keller and Dylan Barbagallo, and postdocs Tushar Ghosh and Natalya Sheremetyeva, along with professors Geoffroy Hautier and Ian Baker. The study presents an "alternative to high-performance rare-earth permanent magnets for use in electric motors and devices."

Advancing Materials Science

New publications from the Hautier Research Group include "First-principles study of intrinsic and hydrogen point defects in the earth-abundant photovoltaic absorber Zn₃P₂" published in Journal of Materials Chemistry A and authored by postdoc researchers Zhenkun Yuan and Yihuang Xiong, and Professor Geoffroy Hautier. Xiong and Hautier are also co-authors of "Strong electron-phonon coupling driven pseudogap modulation and density-wave fluctuations in a correlated polar metal" published in Nature Communications.

Prouty Pilot Research Projects

Dartmouth's Center for Imaging Medicine received two $60,000 grants for Prouty Pilot Research Projects: (1) Professors Petr Brůža and David Gladstone, along with PhD student Roman Vasyltsiv and co-PI Lesley Jarvis from the Dept of Radiation Oncology, will analyze Cherenkov light emissions to identify response variations between normal and abnormal tissue; and (2) researcher Arthur Petusseau Th'23 will work with Brůža and co-PI Shane Chapman from the Dept of Dermatology on an advanced imaging system for the early detection of malignant skin lesions, and for guided surgical resection of non-melanoma skin cancer.

En Route to Better Batteries

PhD student Peiyu Wang, Professor Weiyang (Fiona) Li, and researchers from Stanford University are authors of "High-Performance Lithium−Sulfur Batteries via Molecular Complexation," published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society. This study presents a new route to design and tailor liquid-sulfur-based cathodes with excellent solubilities of solid discharge products to greatly improve the reversibility, stability, cycling performance, and low-temperature capabilities of Li−S batteries.

Printing Solar Cells

PhD student Julia Huddy and Professor William Scheideler co-authored "Rapid 2D Patterning of High-Performance Perovskites Using Large Area Flexography" published in Advanced Functional Materials. The study leverages high-speed flexographic printing to deposit critical materials for perovskite solar cells over large areas, creating a scalable method for manufacturing and future commercialization.

Best Paper Award

PhD student Michele Maxson was invited to present her work with professor Fridon Shubitidze entitled, "Active Bucking Using a System On a Chip Field Programmable Gate Array for Geophysical Investigations" at the Near Surface Geoscience conference in Edinburgh, Scotland last week. The invitation came as part of a "best paper" award earlier this year at the 35th Symposium on the Application of Geophysics to Engineering and Environmental Problems in New Orleans.