Lane Martin, Rice University/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Lane W. Martin is the Robert A. Welch Professor of Materials Science and NanoEngineering, Chemistry, and Physics and Astronomy and the inaugural Director of the Rice Advanced Materials Institute, both at Rice University as well as a Faculty Senior Scientist in the Materials Sciences Division at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Lane received his B.S. in Materials Science and Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University in Dec. 2003 and his M.S. and Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley in May 2006 and 2008, respectively. From 2008 to 2009, Lane served as a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Quantum Materials Program, Materials Sciences Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

From 2009 to 2014, Lane was an Assistant Professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Lane returned to the University of California, Berkeley as an Associate Professor from 2014-2018. He was promoted to Professor in July 2018 and served as Vice/Associate Chair from 2018-2021. From 2021 to 2023, Lane was a Chancellor’s Professor and Chair of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering and served as both the Secretary and Chair (elected) of the Faculty of the College of Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley.

Lane has been active in MRS for more than 20 years and continuously throughout his professional career. His work with MRS has included organizing multiple symposia at the Fall and Spring MRS meetings and IMRC meetings, serving as a member of the Discovering Breakthroughs Inside Science (DBIS) Committee, serving on the Strategic Programming Planning Subcommittee, and serving as a reviewer for the Graduate Student Award selection committee at multiple meetings. More recently, Lane was a Meeting Chair for the Fall 2022 MRS meeting and is currently a member of the Topical Curation Subcommittee. Lane is also a member of other societies, including ACerS, APS, and IEEE-UFFC where he is active in numerous society committees. Lane also serves on numerous advisory boards for materials science programs, national user facilities, and large-scale research programs. He is also a member of the governing committee (the Ferroelectrics Standing Committee) for IEEE-UFFC and is a member of the International Advisory Board of Advanced Materials.

Lane’s research focuses on the study of the synthesis, characterization, and utilization of emergent function (be that electronic, ferroic, multiferroic, etc.) in complex oxides. He applies innovative synthesis of highly controlled, epitaxial thin-film materials with special attention to accessing new states of matter, uses growth and epitaxy to access new insights about foundational materials physics, and pushes the edge of material response via strain, defect, and interfacial engineering. To date, Lane has published >285 papers, his work has been cited ~31,000 times (resulting in an h-index = 79; i10-index = 232), and he has given ~190 invited/plenary/keynote talks. His work has garnered numerous honors including leading to him being named a Fellow of the Materials Research Society, the American Ceramics Society, and the American Physical Society. He is also a multiple-time Highly Cited Researcher and has won numerous other awards including the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers.

Candidate's Statement

MRS is my professional society home and has played an important part in my career as an independent materials scientist. As a member of the Board of Directors, I will strive to maintain the sense of welcoming, belonging, and mutual respect that fosters the high-quality interdisciplinary interaction we expect from MRS and its meetings. This will keep the door open for the next generation of global materials scientists and engineers to find their own way in this critical field. We will build from our history of success to assure that MRS remains a premier, global professional society that values innovative thinking of scientists and engineers from around the world, provides them the opportunities to engage, and is seen, internationally, as the trusted resource in understanding and addressing societal challenges that touch on the field of materials. 

To achieve this mission, I believe that MRS must: 

• Remain an organization by and for its members: One’s rich history does not absolve the leadership and members from visioning and adjusting to changes. For many years, MRS has expressed a justifiable desire to flex and adapt to the rapidly changing materials-science landscape. We must balance sustained support for traditional sub-disciplines of the community while welcoming new groups to the fold – a balance that comes from continued attention and the engagement of a broad community. My goal will be to streamline MRS decision making so that the Society can remain agile and relevant to member and community needs. 
• Maintain excellence: To be the premier organization in materials requires that we never lose sight of a shared commitment to excellence in all the Society and its members do. This means assuring the quality of our meetings which should continue to be seen as the meetings to attend. This also means assuring that our publications are of the utmost quality and, when appropriate, making rational (and tough) decisions as to how to grow this impact or redirect resources to assure the health of the Society. I would welcome creative ideas on how to engage our Society’s best assets – our members, volunteers, and staff – to re-envision these stalwarts and empower them to make needed changes to day-to-day operations. 
• Make global impact: Topics at the heart of MRS from microelectronics, to the energy transition, to sustainability, to synthetic biology, and beyond are seen as societal challenges. MRS has a critical role to play in addressing these challenges and has the responsibility to bring together the diversity of minds required to make real and substantive impact herein. This means continuing to support the engagement of MRS’ core membership (e.g., academia, government-sponsored laboratories, etc.), but also moving beyond best intentions to actually serving as a conduit to other fundamental scientific communities, industry, and governments wherein there are opportunities to foster co-design and -education. MRS can and should be a catalyst to accelerate meaningful efforts that value innovation, engagement, and scientific action and should be prepared to expand upon its offerings (i.e., meetings, publications, or both) to welcome other parts of society into the conversation.
• Support and foster an engaged membership: MRS has published numerous commendable aspirations in the realm of diversity, equity, and inclusion that we as a community should continue to strive to achieve. The reality is that solving the challenges we face requires a diversity of perspectives that necessitates a wider community than has traditionally been engaged. MRS should evaluate the effectiveness of efforts in this regard and respond with action to opportunities to further progress or redirect efforts. For example, while virtual engagements offer some the opportunity engage with MRS in ways they might not have had before, there are further opportunities for MRS to support researchers from around the world to be part of MRS – including at the in-person meetings. I believe it is the responsibility of the MRS leadership to think creatively to support such opportunities and to be meaningful engagement opportunities for researchers around the world and at different points of their careers. This includes further bolstering support for student-lead efforts at and separate from the meetings. 

MRS is being pulled in many directions and must balance the ways of the past and the opportunities of the future. The Society should not fear change or thoughtful experimentation and should not be content with the inertia of a large system delaying changes and innovation that are needed. The responsibility to assure the organization retains that responsiveness relies on the Society embracing agile decision making, maintaining passionate and engaged members and volunteers, and empowering those individuals to drive the Society towards the future. As part of the Board of Directors, I hope to guide MRS towards that future – embracing and growing upon our strengths, addressing areas of weakness, and all the while assuring we are focused on excellence, innovation, and unquestioned scientific and engineering quality. This will assure the Society is exciting and dynamic in all that we do.