As the new interim director of the Material Science and Engineering Program, WSU professor Aurora Clark emphasized the program’s importance across disciplines.

“The program is like a little animal,” Clark said. “And so you have to make sure it is well-fed and well-cared for, and so you are kind of laying the base for it to flourish.”

As the newest director of MSEP, Clark has high hopes for the program and the opportunities available for students.

As an interdisciplinary program, MSEP allows students access to a broader range of research tools. It also expands the type of research Ph.D. candidates are able to do, Clark said.

“Normally, when you are a Ph.D. chemistry student, you will zoom-in and kind of focus on a specific area of chemistry,” Clark, whose background is in chemistry, said. “And with MSEP often times the projects are more diverse, so you will have the chance to do a little chemistry, do a little physics or materials development with a little bit of chemistry.”

MSEP program coordinator Amanda Wudiri makes sure student applications facilitate correctly and that students of the program are on the correct course in time for graduation.

“What I appreciate about the program is the interdisciplinary nature which allows students to have an integrative approach with what they are studying,” Wudiri said.

Clark emphasized the importance of working across disciplines in life outside of school.

“(MSEP) is just more broad and that broadness it helps you kind of tackle real world problems more effectively,” she said.

One of the 62 graduate students in MSEP, Chun-hung Wang, who works with Clark, said he appreciates that broadness.

“I like this program because it gives me more opportunities and resources with a broader view,” Wang said. “I have a special degree in chemistry and I get to meet different students with different ideas.”

One of the projects Clark is working on through MSEP doesn’t reside in her offices; it relies on computing technology housed underground, beneath Martin Stadium, which analyzes water-alcohol mixtures.

Currently MSEP is working on a project with a class of materials called nanoporous, which are materials that have very small pore-like holes that separate mixtures of solutions such as water and alcohol. This allows for the creation of solutions like biofuel purification.

Because of projects like this and others available for students, Clark intends to make sure that the program is well-known around campus in hopes of being beneficial for students of all science degrees.

“Creating new materials and discovering new materials requires a lot of different expertise, more than just a single person could do,” Clark said. “The main goal in general of material science is to discover new materials that can make society a better place.”