Two grad students awarded prestigious National Defense fellowships
Two materials science and engineering PhD students have earned 2026 (NDSEG) Fellowships.
Sinica Guo and Austin Shoemaker are each receiving the honor, which provides three year fellowships to promising young scientists and engineers. The award includes a monthly stipend and coverage of tuition, fees and insurance, along with a travel budget for professional development to present research findings at conferences and workshops.Ìý
NDSEG was established by Congress to recognize and support science and engineering PhD students in disciplines of military importance.Ìý
Guo and Shoemaker are among 102 honorees at 61 U.S. universities this year.
Find out more about our honorees and their research below.ÌýÌý
Sinica Guo
3rd Year PhD Student
Advisor: Matt Eichenfield
Lab:
My research focuses on developing integrated acoustoelectric devices by combining high-mobility III–V semiconductors materials with acoustic platforms. These devices use interactions between drifting charge carriers and surface acoustic waves to provide non-reciprocal acoustic amplification, with potential applications in compact RF signal-processing and communication systems. My work involves device fabrication, process optimization, and heterogeneous materials integration. The fabrication flow includes lithography, semiconductor etching, thin-film deposition, with a focus on surface and interface engineering to improve device performance and stability.
Austin Shoemaker
1st Year PhD Student
Advisor: Seth Marder
Lab: Marder Group
My research will investigate how the molecular chemistry of self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) controls interfacial structure, energetics, and stability in metal halide perovskite (MHP) electronic devices. I will systematically compare phosphonic acid (PA) and alkoxysilane (AOS) anchoring groups using molecularly matched SAM pairs to isolate the effects of anchoring chemistry, backbone interactions, and terminal group functionality. Through this work, I seek to specifically establish the influence of SAM chemistry on packing order, dipole formation, and charge transport. These SAMs will be deposited on conducting device substrates and characterized using techniques including contact angle goniometry, X-ray and ultraviolet photoelectron spectroscopy, and atomic force microscopy to quantify surface coverage, bonding, morphology, and electronic structure. The most promising systems will then be integrated into perovskite solar cells and related devices, where electrical performance and stability will be evaluated under operational stressors such as light, heat, humidity, and bias. By correlating molecular-level design with device-scale performance, this work aims to establish design rules for engineering robust, high-performance interfaces in next-generation optoelectronic technologies.
Shoemaker is an awardee of both the NDSEG and a 2026 National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship. Program rules allow honorees to receive only one. He has chosen the NDSEG.
