NALAM RESEARCH GROUP
Department of Materials Design and Innovation
University at Buffalo, NY
The research in the lab focuses on understanding forces at nanoscales to develop novel and functional materials in the fields of tribology, biomedicine, and environmental engineering. A better understanding of the structure-mechanical property relations is needed to develop reliable and system-compatible materials.
The current research directions in the group are
Nanotribology of 2D Materials in Liquids
Machine Learning Approach to Predict Nanoscale Friction
Membrane Design and Mechanics

Entrapment of water underneath a single - layered graphene layer

Indentation of live cell using colloid probe AFM

Topography image of lipid bilayer on silica substrate

Roughness on a colloid probe

Clustered lipid and vesicles on a glass surface

Schematic of nanomechanical indentation on hydrogels using AFM
Group News:
12/2021: Behnoosh successfully defended her Ph.D. Congratulations Dr. Baboukani!
10/2021: Awarded U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Lead Technical Studies Award to test the efficacy of dried mycelium - the root structure of mushrooms to remove lead from Buffalo Soil.
09/2021: Selected as early career editorial board member for tribology letters, Springer, Nature.
https://www.springer.com/journal/11249/editors
10/2020: A novel pedagogical framework for materials science with data science and informatics.
07/2020: Cutting edge in Tribology: Designing lubricants by artificial intelligence.
05/2020: Awarded SUNY Research Seed Grant for the development of Fungal-based, sedimentation-assisted plasma separators for isolation of antibodies for the viral treatment.
01/2020: Invited talk at the International Nanotribology Forum (INF), Thailand
04/2019: Congratulations to Behnoosh for winning second place in the SEAS 2019 Graduate Poster Competition.
08/2018: Awarded Center for Material Informatics Grant for the Development of QSPRs for Mycelium Membranes.
02/2017: Started NFL Lab at UB.