Mark is also active in the community.  He has coached youth soccer teams (pictured), volunteers with the Challenged Athletes Foundation, and judges regional high school science fairs.

Mark’s captivation with the field of Materials Science began in high school after attending an engineering convention at the Carnegie Science Center in Pittsburgh.  Seeing demonstrations of shape memory alloys and piezoelectrics, Mark became convinced that Materials Science would become his career.  During the summer months of high school, he was even given the opportunity to work at a local failure analysis firm, Matco Services, Inc.  Now as a professional in the field, these early opportunities have instilled in Mark a need to contribute to scientific outreach programs that attract students to careers in science and engineering.

Mark with Lionel at UIUC graduation.

Mark has mentored a number of undergraduate / graduate students during his research career. More than four of his publications were written with students that he directly mentored.  Recently, Mark had the privilege to advise Lionel Moh during his undergraduate thesis work at the University of Illinois.  Under Mark’s guidance, Lionel designed his own experimental plan to investigate fundamental scaling laws of swollen polymer brushes in the high density regime.  This work led to Lionel’s first first-author publication. Working with Mark in soft matter research encouraged Lionel to pursue graduate studies in polymer chemistry as a part of Tim Swager’s group at MIT in the Department of Chemistry.

Mark discussing the three tenants of Materials Science with High Schoolers

Ceramics can be fun! Like using a piezoelectric to generate electricity.

Mark working in the lab with Summer REU Student Erin Kuhl.

Mark has been involved with science / engineering outreach since he was an undergraduate at Penn State where he helped to organize the annual EMEX open house for the college of Earth and Mineral Sciences.  Since then he has continued to be involved in programs like the Exploring Your Options summer camp (pictured) and Girls Learning About Materials.  Mark strongly believes that getting youths excited about science is one of the best ways to encourage them to pursue careers in science & engineering.

Urbana Youth Soccer League

School of Materials Science & Engineering

Last Updated: June 20, 2014

© 2012 M. D. Losego