Underpinning the four pillars are shared capabilities that accelerate materials discovery and shorten the path from laboratory to market. TEMI faculty develop and integrate advanced tools across data science and artificial intelligence, applied mathematics, robotics, and self-driving laboratories, alongside specialized expertise in additive manufacturing, membrane separations, thermal sciences, and process engineering. By deploying these cross-cutting capabilities across the institute, new materials are designed faster and manufactured reliably at scale.
Core Faculty
Timothy Atherton
Keywords: Soft Matter, Colloids, Liquid Crystals, Self-Assembly, Computational Materials Modeling, Inverse Design, Materials Geometry
Timothy Atherton is a Professor and Chair of the Department of Physics and Astronomy. His research connects to TEMI through the physics and computational design of complex materials. He studies how interactions, geometry, defects, and mechanics give rise to structure and function in soft and functional systems, including liquid crystals, colloids, and active matter. His group develops computational methods to model, optimize, and inversely design these systems. By linking fundamental physics to predictive design, this work supports Epsilon’s efforts to engineer materials with targeted properties.
Markus Nemitz
Keywords: Multi-Material Printing, Polymers and Elastomers, Additive Manufacturing, Robotics, Autonomous Manufacturing, Self-Driving Laboratories, Robot Swarms
Markus Nemitz is an Associate Professor and Jon Levy Faculty Fellow in the Department of Mechanical Engineering. The Nemitz Robotics Group treats materials as part of a robot’s intelligence. They develop fabrication processes that print soft elastomers, multi-material parts, and graded composites combining soft and rigid materials. Paired with evolutionary design, robotic assembly, and self-driving laboratories, these processes let machines design and build entire robots with minimal human input. Their goal: low-cost robot swarms clearing unexploded ordnance. TEMI connects this work to Tufts’ materials community, from polymers to automated manufacturing.
Marc Hodes
Keywords: Aerogels, Photosurfactants, Transport Phenomena, Galinstan, Thermal Management
Marc Hodes is a Professor of Mechanical Engineering and affiliate faculty of Mathematics at Tufts University. His current interests are in mass transfer phenomena in the manufacture of nanomaterials in the form of aerogels with superlative thermophysical properties for myriad applications, and in analytical models to replace numerical solutions in canonical problems related to thermal management technologies, including how the use of emerging materials plays a role.
Abani Patra
Keywords: Computational Science, Data-Driven Modeling, Large-Scale Simulation, Data Science, Artificial Intelligence
Abani Patra is a Professor of Computer Science and Mathematics and Director of Data Science at the Tufts Institute for Artificial Intelligence, with appointments in Mechanical Engineering and in Civil and Environmental Engineering. Trained in computational mathematics, he researches computational issues in large-scale and data-driven modeling. He was the founding director of the Institute for Computational and Data Sciences at the University at Buffalo and has directed programs at the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Energy. His expertise in simulation, data science, and AI supports TEMI’s efforts to accelerate the discovery and design of new materials.
Ayse Asatekin
Keywords: Membranes, Polymer Science, Self-Assembling Polymers, Separations, Surface Chemistry, Polymers for Energy Storage
Ayse Asatekin is a Professor in the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering. She designs self-assembling polymers that create nanostructure and control surface chemistry, and uses them to make novel membranes for water treatment, small-molecule separations, and energy-efficient smart filtration. Her research connects to TEMI through polymer materials for energy storage developed in interdisciplinary collaborations, as well as systems that combine separation with catalysis and self-cleaning materials with controlled wetting. She received bachelor’s degrees in chemical engineering and chemistry from the Middle East Technical University in Ankara, Turkey, and her Ph.D. in chemical engineering from MIT, followed by postdoctoral research at MIT. She co-founded Clean Membranes, Inc. and serves as Senior Scientific Advisor to ZwitterCo, Inc., a Tufts spin-out commercializing the extremely fouling-resistant zwitterionic membranes developed in her lab.
Also in: Energy Storage Materials