Celebrate the achievements of our 2025 MRS Spring Award recipients, recognized for their outstanding contributions to materials research. They were honored during the MRS Award Recipients Lightning Talks and Panel Discussion at the 2025 MRS Spring Meeting & Exhibit in Seattle, Washington. 

Sarbajit Banerjee, Y. Shirley Meng...Craig M. Brown

Spanning three important materials classes, this article summarizes the areas of alignment and unifying themes, distinctive needs of different materials research communities, key science drivers that cannot be accomplished within the capabilities of current materials laboratories, and open questions that need further community input.

Long-Qing Chen & John C. Mauro 

Most engineering systems such as thermal engines, furnaces, and such, are operated as thermodynamically open systems allowing for the exchange of chemical matter between a system and its surroundings. 

Matthew Hauwiller

In the quest to tackle grand challenges in energy, biology, electronics, and other areas, industry and academic leaders are building cross-continental research collaborations between African and non-African researchers.

Henry Quansah Afful

Most engineering applications are limited by the availability of materials with desired properties; the discovery of novel materials is, therefore, crucial to technological advancement.

XiaoZhi Lim

For thousands of years, steel and other alloys were forged by mixing pure molten metals together in a multistage, high-temperature process. A new method proposes alloy-making without melting metals at all—indeed, without even extracting them from ore.