Funding
Our research is possible thanks to public agencies, foundations and companies, and to shared research infrastructure at Michigan State University. This page lists current and past support. Grants are listed with the role of Prof. Mendoza-Cortés and links to the public award records where available.
- National Science Foundation
- U.S. Department of Energy
- U.S. Army Research Office
- Office of Naval Research
- Research Corporation for Science Advancement
- Alfred P. Sloan Foundation
- ClimateWorks Foundation
- NVIDIA
- Software for Chemistry & Materials (SCM)
- Florida State University
Current research grants
Collaborative Research: Electronic structure and mechanism of oxygen evolution from synthetic heterocubane topological mimics of the oxygen-evolving complex of Photosystem II
Principal investigator (MSU). Collaborative award with Temple University (M. J. Zdilla, CHE-2555661). Award record
Collaborative Research: Improving sustainable dual-ion battery performance through stabilization of the cathode–electrolyte interphase using ultrathin graphitic electrodes
Principal investigator (MSU). Collaborative award with the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (J. Rodríguez-López, CHE-2422569). Award record
Shared research infrastructure and training programs
Awards on which Prof. Mendoza-Cortés is a co-investigator without funds assigned to the lab. They built computing and data infrastructure, and a summer research program, that our group and many others at MSU use.
The MSU Data Hub: a campus-wide hub for data storage, collaboration and sharing to enable data-intensive research and education
Co-investigator (PI: B. W. O'Shea). Award record
The MSU Data Machine: a high-memory, GPU-enabled compute cluster for data-intensive and AI applications
Co-investigator (PI: B. W. O'Shea). Award record
REU Site: Early Engagement in Semiconductor Materials and Technologies (EESMT)
Co-investigator and faculty mentor (PI: A. Zevalkink). Award record
Completed grants at Michigan State University
Robust, scalable multifunctional electrode for CO2 reduction and C–C coupling in seawater
Principal investigator of a collaborative team award. Announcement
Develop a sustainable process to produce amines for direct air capture
Principal investigator of a collaborative team award. Announcement
Enabling fast and efficient nonaqueous ion (co-)intercalation for high-energy-density charge storage via systematic interfacial design
Co-principal investigator (PI: J. Rodríguez-López). Started at FSU and continued at MSU. Award record
Center for Engineering Concepts Development: machine-learning techniques for force fields
Co-principal investigator (subaward). Started at FSU and continued at MSU.
Grants at Florida State University (2015 to 2020)
Low-frequency vibrational modes in structure-changing metal-organic frameworks by atomistic simulations and quantum-mechanical methods
Principal investigator.
Elucidating the impact of electrostatic interactions and number of layers on the mechanisms of ion intercalation in few-layer graphene
Co-principal investigator (PI: J. Rodríguez-López). Award record
REU Site: Sunshine Institute for the Interaction of Light with Matter
Faculty participant (PI: E. F. Hilinski). Award record
Materials genome to accelerate materials discovery
Principal investigator. FSU News story
Materials genome for the production of clean and alternative energy; ab initio simulations toward smart concrete and sustainable cement
Principal investigator of two awards.
GPU hardware for machine learning and quantum simulations
Principal investigator of two hardware grants.
Development of multiscale methods
Principal investigator of a supercomputing allocation (50,000 MPP hours).
Fellowships and grants during training
Roberto Rocca Ph.D. Fellowship
Fellow (15 fellows per year worldwide).
Graduate fellowship and earlier scholarships
Recipient.
Fellowships and awards held by group members
Students and postdocs bring in their own fellowships and awards, a sign of the quality of their work.
- Daniel Maldonado-Lopez, Fitch H. Beach Award, second place, College of Engineering (2026)
- Marcus Djokic, Dissertation Completion Fellowship (2026)
- Ismail A. Buliyaminu, College of Natural Science Dissertation Completion Fellowship (2026)
- Marcus Djokic, Austin Rodriguez, Yu-Hsiu Lin, Graduate Office Fellowships (2024–2026)
- Brandon Lewis, TEAM-UP Together Undergraduate Research Fellowship (AIP, APS, AAPT, AAS and SPS), CNS Undergraduate Research Scholarship and Parker Scholarship (2026)
- Susana Lopez-Moreno, Graduate Student Project in Industrial Mathematics and Interdisciplinary Research grant, Pusan National University (2026)
- Yu-Hsiu Lin, Outstanding Graduate Student Award in Materials Science and Engineering, College of Engineering (2025)
- Austin Rodriguez, Rising Star and Best Poster Abstract Award and SCM Poster Award, MLCM-25 (Los Alamos) (2025)
- Austin Rodriguez, Dissertation Completion Fellowship (2025)
- Ehsan Gowdini, Graduate School and College of Arts and Sciences award (2025)
- Daniel Maldonado-Lopez, APS Braslau Family Travel Grant, APS FGSA Travel Award, ACS Bridge Program Travel Award (2024–2025)
- Daniel Maldonado-Lopez, NSF Graduate Research Fellowship (2023)
- Yu-Hsiu Lin, College of Engineering Summer Fellowship (2023)
- Austin Rodriguez, Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science Fellowship (2022)
- Gabriel Jurado, APS Bridge Program Fellowship (2019)
Computing. Our calculations run on MSU's high-performance computing center operated by the Institute for Cyber-Enabled Research, including the GPU-enabled MSU Data Machine, and earlier on FSU's Research Computing Center and DOE's NERSC.