RAMI Postdoctoral Fellowship Program - 2025

Applications Open

The Rice Advanced Materials Institute (RAMI) Postdoctoral Fellowship Program is intended to support outstanding scholars and foster their early career development while broadening their experience in preparation for an independent research career. Candidates for RAMI Fellowship should demonstrate a keen interest in interdisciplinary research and commitment to advance Rice materials research capabilities. At the same time, this program is designed to catalyze new directions in the field of advanced materials at Rice and to support faculty and postdoctoral scholars to pursue world-class, high-risk, high-reward research in areas of materials research related to the research areas of RAMI.

Current RAMI Postdoctoral Fellows

About RAMI
At the highest level, RAMI will accelerate fundamental research and applied technology development to address generational challenges in energy, sustainability, and national security. The Institute will co-design innovative, energy-efficient materials for applications ranging from next-generation information and communication technologies to sustainable water supplies for society, to energy systems, and beyond. In this way, RAMI will assure Rice’s leadership in guiding materials innovations to enable the energy transition. To support these goals, RAMI is focused on a near-term (three-to-four years), multifaceted approach to further bolster the strength of the faculty and expand our research footprint in key strategic areas thus advancing our goals of maintaining and raising our national and international rankings and reputation as a leader in advanced materials. Among other efforts, RAMI will support the identification and recruitment of new faculty in the wide field of advanced materials to extend our influence into new strategic areas and reinforce specific areas to assure a critical mass of effort.

Target Research Areas
RAMI has identified a set of target research focus areas that will guide its efforts. These areas were developed from motivating trends in the wider materials field, current strengths at Rice, and opportunity for growth in our research endeavor. The three areas are, briefly:

  • Area I: Next-generation electronic/photonic materials
  • Area II: Energy materials
  • Area III: Materials for environmental stewardship

Additional details on these areas are provided in the Appendix at the end of this document. Successful proposals will clearly identify the area of impact and relationship to these core research areas and/or the cross-cutting theme noted in the Appendix.

Program Summary and Funding

  • The goals of this program are two-fold:

1) To discover and encourage individuals of outstanding talent and provide them with the opportunity to pursue their research at Rice as postdoctoral Fellows.

2) To promote interdisciplinary research in the field of advanced materials at Rice that will open new directions for multidisciplinary research and funding in this field.

  • Candidates will be selected based on academic achievement and promise for scientific research and impact as demonstrated by outcomes and excellence in their career to date.
  • The appointments are intended to be for two years (or a one-plus-one structure) and will be completed through RAMI while the Fellows will work with Faculty across Rice.
  • To assure we can attract the best in the world, the Fellows will receive an annual salary of $75,000 and an additional $10,000 research budget (offered in the first year only) to support activities such as supplies, equipment, conference/workshop travel, etc. to be controlled by and used at the Fellow’s discretion. The funding support will be 80% RAMI and 20% from host PI(s).
  • RAMI will be the sponsor and administrative home for each Fellow who will be hosted by Rice faculty and an academic department for their research.
  • While not a requirement, priority will be given to nominations that can project impact at the boundary of traditional fields of materials research wherein the Fellow will serve as both the seed for new directions of research outside of the traditional portfolio of a single PI and the connection between those fields. In this regard, nominations for a Fellow from more than one faculty PI are welcomed and recommended.
  • We anticipate two (2) fellowships to be awarded in this round with future calls to come.

Eligibility

  • Nominations are welcome from full-time, tenure-track faculty (with a primary appointment at Rice) who are RAMI members and are conducting research in the area of advanced materials with overlap to RAMI research areas.
  • Fellow nominees with a Ph.D. in a field related to the RAMI research areas (see Appendix).
  • Fellow nominees who have no more than two years since the award of their Ph.D. before the start of the appointment.
  • Faculty who is currently serving as the host PI of a RAMI Postdoctoral Fellow is not eligible to submit an additional nomination (i.e., a PI can only supervise one (1) RAMI Postdoctoral Fellow at a time).

Fellow Qualifications

  • RAMI Fellowships are intended for exceptional young scientists and engineers of great promise who have recently been awarded, or who are about to be awarded, their doctoral degree. This excellence should be demonstrable through publications, presentations, awards, letters, etc. and this Fellowship should be seen as a potential pathway to recruit and train future faculty early in their careers.
  • RAMI Fellows are expected to begin their Fellowship shortly after being awarded their Ph.D. A short period as a postdoctoral fellow elsewhere does not exclude eligibility, however, candidates who have already completed substantial postdoctoral training are unlikely to be successful except in unusual circumstances.
  • RAMI Fellows cannot have had more than two years of postdoctoral experience from other institutions, nor been employed as an assistant professor, associate professor or professor (in any capacity), in order to be eligible.
  • Nominees who are non-US citizens must show eligibility for obtaining J-1 Scholar visa status for the duration of the Fellowship.

Application Guidelines

All nominations should come from Rice faculty members and the nomination must include the following documents:

  • A curriculum vitae of the postdoctoral candidate being nominated
  • A nomination letter from the faculty member(s) who will serve as the advisor(s), that includes (at a minimum) a summary of the relevant research experience and achievements of the candidate that make them an exceptional candidate for this position. For nominations from groups of faculty, the letter should be co-signed by the proposed mentors.
  • A research proposal that includes the following sections (11 pt font, single-spaced text):
    • A concise statement (350-word maximum) of the research objectives and goals emphasizing interdisciplinary approaches to advanced materials;
    • A short (150-word maximum) overview of the connection to RAMI research areas;
    • An overview of the current state of the art of the problem, the open challenges, the nature and novelty of the proposed approach, and expected outcomes (no more than 1000 words); and
    • A brief description of the anticipated positive impact the Fellow on the Rice scientific community and how this support will enable the PI(s) to work-towards, submit, and compete for substantial research proposals at the medium ($2M-$5M) or large (>$5M) scales with an eye towards high-profile awards (no more than 500 words).

Fellow and Advisor Expectations

  • All Fellow-Advisors pairs will be evaluated yearly and will be asked to complete a brief report on their efforts of the previous year (with the year coinciding with the start date of the Fellow)
  • Key performance indicators will include: 1) publications, scholarly outputs, and creative works; 2) the number of proposals planned, in-progress, submitted, and/or awarded; 3) internal and external collaborations across the materials community; 4) outreach and visibility indicators (e.g., partnerships, invited talks, awards, placement of Fellows, etc.)
  • Participation of the Fellow and Advisors in a RAMI-sponsored event or workshop to occur no more than once a year. We envision using this as a venue for the Fellow to present their ongoing work and as a well to celebrate these efforts.
  • Acknowledgement of RAMI support and listing RAMI as an affiliation in publications, presentations, news stories, etc.

Failure to engage in such process will result in termination of funding.

How to Apply

Materials can be submitted via an email with the subject line “RAMI Postdoctoral Fellow Nomination 2025” to ricematerials@rice.edu. The deadline for submitting postdoctoral fellowship applications is December 15, 2024.RAMI will consider applications submitted after the deadline ONLY if the initial submissions do not meet the required standards.

Review and Selection

Proposals will undergo evaluation by RAMI leadership and ad hoc reviewers pulled from the RAMI Steering Committee and RAMI affiliates (excluding those with conflicts of interest) with knowledge and expertise in the technical area of the proposal. Evaluations will be based on:

  • The identification of an outstanding RAMI Fellow nominee as demonstrated by publications, presentations, awards, letters, etc.
  • Articulation of a compelling Research Proposal, it's objectives and goals, articulation of the problem, open challenges, the nature and novelty of the proposed approach, and expected outcomes.
  • Anticipated positive impact of the Fellow on the Rice scientific community, and potential for research funding.
  • Interdisciplinary nature of the proposed effort and the potential for new materials research directions for Rice.

Following an initial screening based on the ratings and feedback provided by faculty reviewers, the final selection committee will choose the top two candidates from the downselected list.

Awards are anticipated to be announced by the end of January 2025.

Appendix – RAMI Targeted Research Areas and Cross-Cutting Theme

  • Area I: Next-generation Electronic/Photonic Materials – This area is focused on developing materials to enable a new paradigm in microelectronics ranging from memory/logic to communications to sensors and beyond. The need for transformative advances in this space has never been more clear. From an energy perspective, computing is the fastest growing consumer of energy. If left unchecked, >30% of primary energy production will be used in computing in just the next decade! At the same time, from a national security and economic perspective, there is a vast effort to assure U.S. leadership in the innovation and to on-shore the manufacture of these systems. This has led to considerable investment in the microelectronics ecosystem in the U.S. with, for example, the CHIPS and Science Act in 2022, the DoD Commons initiative, new production facilities being built in the U.S. (e.g., Intel in Ohio, TSMC in Arizona, and Samsung in Texas), and, more locally, strong investment from the state of Texas (e.g., the Texas CHIPS Act worth $1.4B). Besides next-generation, energy-efficient electronics, ever-growing demand is calling for computation, communications, sensing, etc. technologies to be introduced into every aspect of our lives, thus enabling “smart” function and automation from consumer electronics to healthcare and beyond. This calls for needs ranging from edge computing to new modalities of sensors and actuators to responsive materials that can adapt to changing stimuli. Innovations and needs in this regard span all of materials science including both soft and hard matter, inorganic and organic materials, aspects of materials computation, synthesis, processing, characterization, fabrication, and integration, and efforts herein will have a profound impact on materials research and technology for decades to come. Building from recent hires, cluster-hiring initiatives, and new hires, RAMI envisions further investment in research across areas such as: 1) Novel electronic materials such as quantum and 2D materials, wide-bandgap materials, novel functional materials including dielectrics, piezoelectrics, pyroelectrics, ferroelectrics, magnets, multiferroics, magnetoelectrics, etc. to enable devices such as logic and memory (e.g., FeFET, NCFET, MESO, etc.), power electronics, beyond 5G communications, sensing (e.g., electric/magnetic fields, chemical, biological, etc.), interconnects, and beyond. 2) Materials synthesis, processing, fabrication, and prototyping including the production of novel forms of materials (e.g., flexible/freestanding membranes and devices), integration of dissimilar materials, scaling science, advanced etching and lithography processes, and beyond. 3) Co-design of materials and devices/systems wherein researchers look both up and down the “ladder” of traditional materials science to device designs and to systems and architectures and thus accelerate demonstrations and integration of new materials. 4) Materials characterization and testing including multi-modal approaches that explore the length-, time-, and energy-scale limits for materials in such applications.
  • Area II: Energy Materials – This area is focused on developing materials innovations to transform energy storage and conversion/harvesting. Humanity faces a colossal energy problem. Analysts predict a >120-times increase in global energy storage needs by 2040. The challenge of storing energy is not a new one and for generations we have relied on chemical approaches (i.e., as in carbon-based fuels) to this end. Recovering this energy requires breaking and forming new chemical bonds (typically via combustion) and, while this can be effective, it can also produce pollution that contributes to climate change. There is broad demand to accelerate the transition to more efficient, less-polluting, and renewable energy sources, but these sources often cannot produce energy “all the time” (e.g., solar and wind energy). Enabling the energy transition requires energy storage at unprecedented levels. This has primarily been accomplished through electrochemical batteries which involve redox reactions during charging/discharging, a feature which limits their primary use to applications with relatively steady and “slow” energy output. Researchers are also exploring alternative ways to store energy that offer considerably faster charging/discharging rates such as capacitive-energy storage (which can produce short bursts of energy, resulting in large power) by storing energy in a purely electrostatic fashion. In reality, most applications would require hybrid systems (combining the best electrochemical batteries with capacitive-energy storage). Still others have realized that while it is easy to convert electricity into heat, converting it back is considerably more challenging to do efficiently and thus researchers are exploring ways to store thermal energy (at both low cost and scale). Finally, there is a strong driver for us to do as much as possible with every unit of primary energy that is produced. As such, innovations in energy efficiency – including developing novel energy conversion and harvesting techniques that can recover wasted energy are key. Innovations and needs in this regard span all of materials science including both soft and hard matter, inorganic and organic materials, aspects of materials computation, synthesis, processing, characterization, fabrication, and integration, and efforts herein will have a profound impact on materials research and technology for decades to come. RAMI envisions further investment in research across areas such as, for example: 1) Novel energy-storage materials/technologies (e.g., flow batteries, capacitive-energy storage, thermal batteries), other mono- (e.g., Na) and multi-valent battery chemistries, solid-state battery materials, etc. 2) Energy-storage materials fundamentals including understanding material function in storage devices, lifetime, and failure, operando and multi-modal characterization of energy-storage systems, etc. 3) Energy-storage at extremes including materials to enable ultra-fast (pulsed energy) and ultra-long (>10 years) duration storage, energy storage in extreme environments (low and high temperatures, radiation hard, etc.), and beyond. 4) Energy-storage materials lifecycle, including recycling, resource extraction/alternative materials, electrochemical routes for cost effective extraction of resources, etc. 5) Novel materials for energy conversion/harvesting, including non-traditional approaches, to explore efficient approaches to convert energy from one form to another, harvest waste heat, fields, vibrations, etc., hybrid systems capable of harvesting energy of multiple forms in one system, etc.
  • Area III: Materials for Environmental Stewardship – This area is focused on developing materials innovations to assure responsible use of natural resources and long-term stewardship of our air, soil, and water. There has been and will continue to be a need for translational materials science to support the long-term wellness of our society. There is a growing push for research efforts aimed at addressing important challenges in sustainability and environmental issues facing society including, but not limited to: climate change; sustainability in the full materials lifecycle, from extraction to production to design for circularity, including upcycling and recycling; replacement of rare or toxic materials from supply chains, etc. At the same time, we are increasingly being called upon to remediate the mistakes of the past to assure our lived environment supports us in a safe manner. These are some of the most pressing and important problems of our age and how we address these challenges will be essential for creating a sustainable future for subsequent generations. This call to action includes a current generation of students who are passionate about these subjects and want to be a part of the solution, materials scientists and engineers who have the ideas and tools to make an impact in these areas, and industry and markets who see opportunity in this space. Innovations and needs in this regard span all of materials science including both soft and hard matter, inorganic and organic materials, aspects of materials computation, synthesis, processing, characterization, fabrication, and integration, and will have a profound impact on materials research and technology for decades to come. RAMI envisions further investment in research across areas such as, for example: 1) Lifecycle aware materials innovations to transform how we do energy-efficient catalysis, capture, separations, etc. 2) Adsorption/ nanosorbent materials including research on nanomaterials, MOFs, etc. 3) Separations materials such as (nano)membranes. 4) Catalysis including, but not limited to, oxidation of chemicals and CO2 reduction. 5) Capture and storage materials including those capable of working with carbon, water, and/or hydrogen. 6) Materials with selectivity for, stability against, and capable of monitoring/sensing all of the above.
  • Cross-cutting Theme: Accelerating and Automating Materials Discovery, Design, and Manufacturing – This cross-cutting theme is focused on integrating advanced computational, ML, and AI approaches with state-of-the-art experimental efforts to transform how we discover, design, produce, study, and manufacture advanced materials across the above three Research Areas. Such efforts are critically important to modern studies of advanced materials and an area where funding is expected to continue to grow. This cross-cutting theme builds from the collective advance of theoretical, computational, and simulation efforts in materials, including the exploding implementation of ML. For example, the advent of high-throughput ab initio computing approaches is driving an exponential increase in the number of phases/materials predicted to have potentially important properties across nearly all property classes. At the same time, there is growing opportunity to harness automation (both in computation of new materials and properties and in experiment, in the form of robotics, to execute experiments, and software, to complete real-time analysis of hyperspectral, massive datasets), together with ML and AI to automate and optimize materials computation, synthesis, processing, and characterization. In order to make this viable, considerable investment and methodology development is required that spans from traditional materials science core disciplines to AI/ML approaches. Such approaches are important because they could lead to more efficient (both in terms of energy usage, human resources, and time to realization) materials research and development. There are also new tools and large national/global investments in programs and facilities aimed at enabling such efforts for those that know how to make use of these opportunities. Finally, there is a huge demand, from students and from industry, for education, innovation, and impact in this space. Furthermore, modern high-impact materials research increasingly requires multi-modal, collaborative approaches that meld fundamentally (not just tacked on studies) computational and experimental approaches to provide the depth of evidence expected from the community.