Message from the Director

Thank you for your interest in the Advanced Materials & Manufacturing Institute (AMMI) at Rowan University. AMMI was founded in 2019, establishing an integrated and collaborative home for Rowan’s vast research and development efforts in materials science & engineering. We are a dynamic group of students, postdoctoral fellows, administrative staff, staff engineers, faculty, and research scientists who are passionate about materials, material performance, manufacturing, and supply chain resiliency and sustainment. Research, education, and networking are central to our mission. Our faculty, affiliated faculty, research scientists, and staff engineers direct thriving research programs supporting graduate and postdoctoral research fellowships. Furthermore, we provide hands-on, minds-on learning opportunities for our undergraduate students via Junior-Senior Engineering Clinic projects within the Henry M. Rowan College of Engineering (HMRCoE) and research opportunities within the HMRCoE, the College of Science & Mathematics, and other colleges, as well as provide summer internships and 6-month co-ops.  We are also actively developing education and training programs focused on advanced manufacturing across all Rowan campuses, including Rowan College of South Jersey, with the state of New Jersey, industry, and non-profits as partners.

AMMI is built upon Rowan University’s successes in materials-centric research collaborations with a host of federal agencies and industrial partners. The mission of AMMI is to create and disseminate new fundamental and applied technologies grounded in the principles of materials science and to utilize this growing expertise to serve our industrial and government partners through collaboration, agreements, and the development of holistically thinking workforce. Our vision to accomplish our mission is grounded in utilizing nature’s chemistries to enhance material performance, improve global materials utilization, supply, and sustainment, and enhance our national security by gaining a comprehensive understanding of the processing-structure-property relationships of our materials through advanced experimental, analytical, and modeling techniques.  We further strive to accomplish our mission by providing a culture of collaboration both internally and with our external partners that facilitate the intellectual and professional growth of our faculty, students, and staff. All our work is mapped to our four strategic technical initiatives: (1) Advanced Composites, (2) Optics & Photonics, (3) Clean & Green Energy, and (4) Sustainability. Likewise, our four strategic technical initiatives are mapped with the nation’s/state’s greatest challenges in education, food & water, energy, national security, and sustainability, all of which rely on the advancements of materials and manufacturing.

Our facilities include versatile labs and state-of-the-art characterization and performance testing instrumentation, which are also available for fee-for-service, fixed price, and laboratory utilization agreements. Unique to AMMI is its Cold Spray Facility.  This lab is equipped with an automated cold spray additive manufacturing system and in-house, custom-built benchtop cold spray units that allow for revolutionary production, protection, repair and restoration for a wide range of applications. Furthermore, our Cold Spray Facility is equipped with an in-house, custom-built single particle/multi-particle accelerator with ultra-high-speed videography (up to 10 million fps) for high strain rate material performance testing. Beyond our Cold Spray Facility, AMMI maintains a 200-tree birch tree farm that is related to our renewable materials research efforts.  We also operate a glass collection and processing facility that is intimately woven within our Glass Education, Research, and Recirculation Program (GERRP) that was started in October 2023.

We thank all our government, industry, and non-profit sponsors for their continued support. We encourage any and all with an interest in materials and advanced manufacturing to contact us for more information about how we can work together. Your opportunities are our research and education potentials - by working together, we can make a difference.

Again, thank you for your interest in AMMI at Rowan University.  I hope this message inspires you to learn more about and reach out to Rowan University and AMMI.

Joseph F. Stanzione, III, Ph.D.
Professor of Chemical Engineering
Affiliate Faculty of Mechanical Engineering
Affiliate Faculty of the Materials Science & Engineering Graduate Program
Founding Director of AMMI