Materials by the Numbers
Andrea Hwang is headed to UC Berkeley to study computational materials science as a
Ph.D. student
Growing up in the Bay Area of California, Andrea Hwang (B.S. 2021) was interested in physics
and chemistry, but had no awareness of materials science. In fact, she arrived at Carnegie
Mellon in fall 2017 as a chemistry major. That changed quickly,
however, when she enrolled in “Engineering the Materials of the
Future,” taught by Professor Noa Marom.
“I realized that materials science actually brings together the best
aspects of both physics and chemistry,” Hwang explains. “I was
fascinated not by looking at materials at the atomic scale, but by
looking at their larger structures and their patterns of behavior. It
was interesting to see the various ways you could customize
materials for a specific application. I quickly changed my major to
MSE.”
Hwang spent three years in Marom’s research group as an
undergraduate assistant, using computer simulation tools to better
understand materials bonds, structures, and properties. Specifically, she investigated materials
improvements that would support advances in
quantum computing. “Quantum computing has the
capability to enhance supercomputing, but it
requires new processes and new materials,” says
Hwang. “It’s been exciting to work with Professor
Marom on these kinds of innovations.” Along the
way, Hwang added a minor in Electronic Materials to
reflect her growing interest in developing materials
for quantum computing applications.
Hwang also worked as a research intern at IBM,
developing new materials for magnetoelectronics
and spintronics applications. An internship at
Northwestern in summer 2020 allowed her to focus
on computational modeling of soft matter. Her computational models of phase transitions
required her to write her own scripts to calculate and plot desired materials properties.
Results of lattice matching for interfaces with
different substrate and film orientations: on
the left, a cubic interface between Al and InAs
and on the right, a hexagonal interface
between MgB2 and Al2O3.
