What does a Materials Engineer or Scientist Do?
Materials engineers and scientists study the relationship between materials’ structure, performance, properties, and synthesis with the goal of designing and producing new materials and new applications that meet the needs of industry and society. Traditionally, a materials person would study one of the three main materials groups: ceramics, metals, or plastics. Then composites and semiconductors became important as their properties became more well understood. Today, these traditional lines are being crossed as materials scientists typically focus on areas of utilization, such as biomaterials, electronic materials, and optical materials. Another new and important area of focus is in nanomaterials, where the traditional lines between materials are even more blurry. When working with nanomaterials on the order of a few thousand atoms or molecules, properties of materials become skewed such that bulk properties of metals, ceramics, or polymers are significantly less applicable.
