The Abate Lab at MIT will aim at developing material and device solutions for two current grand challenges: climate change and energy accessibility. Global energy transition to renewables is indispensable to combat these challenges and ultimately ensure the continuity of life on earth. Electrochemistry and materials play one of the most significant roles in enabling the energy transition. We are delighted to be part of this era and institution, to stand on the shoulder of giants and make meaningful and impactful contributions to the society through materials innovation and novel electrochemical devices. To ensure for equitable and sustainable energy transition, our group will focus on discovering high-performance, low-cost, sustainable, and environmentally friendly materials.
Welcome to The Abate Group
Led by Prof. Iwnetim Abate in Department of Materials Science and Engineering at MIT
OUR RESEARCH
Materials for Decarbonization and Energy Accessibility
Our Research Approach
With applications mentioned above in mind, we seek and explore ideas to create new materials or engineer existing ones by manipulating their electron, spin, lattice, and orbital degree of freedom. We test these ideas using ground state and excited state calculations. We will use the results to design materials (both model systems and functional materials) and test with experiments (both at the material and device level). We will apply state-of-the-art synthesis techniques (e.g. solid-state synthesis and chemical vapor deposition), electron, optical and X-ray characterization techniques (e.g. high resolution TEM and X-ray methods both at MIT and Synchrotron sources) and quantum mechanical calculations (e.g. DFT, OCEAN and physics based high-throughput material screening). While the figure above depicts the overall scientific research approach in our group, discoveries at times are serendipitous and we aim to keep our eye for surprises and investigating them in holistic manner.
Principal Investigator
Professor Iwnetim Abate
Abate is the Chipman Career Development Professor and an Assistant Professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at MIT. He completed his postdoctoral training at UC Berkeley and his PhD at Stanford University. His interdisciplinary research group at MIT works at the nexus of electrochemistry, condensed matter physics, earth sciences, and data science to develop materials and devices for next-generation energy storage, computing, and mining technologies. Prior to his Ph.D., he conducted research at IBM Almaden and Los Alamos National Laboratory for two years. Abate has been recognized as one of the “Talented 12” by C&E News, a Bose Fellow by MIT, and a Miller Fellow and Presidential Postdoctoral Fellow by UC Berkeley. He also received the Young Investigator Award from the International Solid State Ionics Society, Daniel Cubicciotti Award from the Electrochemical Society and became the Principal Investigator on an ARPA-E award for geological hydrogen.
Outside the lab, Iwnetim is a co-founder and president of a non-profit organization (www.scifro.org) that empowers African youth to address local challenges through scientific research and innovation. The organization is generously supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the National Science Foundation, and the American Physical Society.
Group Members
Research
Facilities
Our lab is in 5th floor of building 13th housing state-of-the-art tools (including tools for electrochemical characterization, synthesis, gloveboxes, physical property measurements system, microscopes, etc. Pictures will be posted here soon). In addition. we will use shared facilities at MIT, national computing centers and synchrotron sources in the US and around the world.
01
02
03
Outreach
About
Professor Abate is a co-founder and president of a non-profit organization (www.scifro.org) working on empowering the African youth to solve local problems through scientific research and innovation. The organization is generously supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, National Science Foundation, American Physical Society and others.
The Abate lab, through SciFro organizes and provides opportunities for the lab members and the broader MIT community to engage in educational outreach in Africa and underrepresented minority communities in the United States. This will include summer schools, boot camps, hosting research in the lab, online lectures, developing teaching kits, and recruiting for graduate studies.
CONNECT WITH US
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
Department of Materials Science & Engineering
77 Massachusetts Ave, Cambridge MA 02139
Bldg 13-5094