What if a materials lab on Earth could screen a hundred alloys a day with little input from the scientist? Taylor and Andrew sit down with Joseph Krause, CEO and co-founder of Radical AI, to dig into what it takes to build a self-driving lab and why most of the field is still missing the hard part. From discovering that flagship SEM and XRD instruments ship with no real data access (and rebuilding their entire OS around the workaround), to MATRIX — their multimodal vision-language model that hones in on a target property in roughly 20 experiments — Joseph walks through the technical bets that got them here. He explains why they're using language-model embeddings to teach Bayesian optimization what "28% titanium" actually means, why "scientific intuition" has to be measured as a delta between human and AI annotations, and why Radical is going all the way to manufacturing instead of licensing compositions — because the real IP, and the only training data that matters, lives on the production floor.

Check out Radical AI here [LINK]

This episode of the Materialism Podcast is sponsored by Momentum Transfer. Visit their website for more details about their measurement services. [LINK]

The Materialism Podcast is sponsored by Materials Today, an Elsevier community dedicated to the creation and sharing of materials science knowledge and experience through their peer-reviewed journals, academic conferences, educational webinars, and more. [LINK]

Thanks to Kolobyte and Alphabot for letting us use their music in the show!

If you have questions or feedback please send us emails at materialism.podcast@gmail.com or connect with us on social media: Instagram, Twitter.

Materialism Team: Taylor Sparks, Andrew Falkowski, & Jared Duffy.

What if you could know which batteries are worth building before you actually build them? Taylor and Andrew sit down with Dr. Qichao Hu, founder of SES AI, to explore how artificial intelligence is reshaping battery discovery and his experience in the field. From his decision to ditch solid state electrolytes and double down on liquid, to building a suite of simulation tools that map molecules all the way up to full cell performance. Dr. Hu lays out how SES went from lithium metal battery startup to offering their hard-won design tools as a platform for the rest of the industry.

This episode of the Materialism Podcast is sponsored by SES AI. To learn more about their tools and how they can benefit you check out their website. [LINK]

This episode of the Materialism Podcast is sponsored by Momentum Transfer. Visit their website for more details about their measurement services. [LINK]

The Materialism Podcast is sponsored by Materials Today, an Elsevier community dedicated to the creation and sharing of materials science knowledge and experience through their peer-reviewed journals, academic conferences, educational webinars, and more. [LINK]

Thanks to Kolobyte and Alphabot for letting us use their music in the show!

If you have questions or feedback please send us emails at materialism.podcast@gmail.com or connect with us on social media: Instagram, Twitter.

Materialism Team: Taylor Sparks, Andrew Falkowski, & Jared Duffy.

The fanciest suit isn't on the runway, it's in orbit. In this follow-up episode, Taylor and Andrew bring back Kate Winning from Oxford Space Systems to dive into the world of space textiles. From the knitted gold-plated mesh antennas that fold up for launch and deploy to the size of a room, to the 14-layer suit that keeps astronauts alive. Learn why tungsten makes a better yarn than you'd expect, how ancient crafts still have a place in high tech manufacturing, and why the hardest part of a spacesuit might just be the gloves.

Thanks to Kate from Oxford for talking to us. Learn more about Oxford Space Systems here [LINK]

Taylors sweater video [LINK]

This episode of the Materialism Podcast is sponsored by Momentum Transfer. Visit their website for more details about their measurement services. [LINK]

The Materialism Podcast is sponsored by Materials Today, an Elsevier community dedicated to the creation and sharing of materials science knowledge and experience through their peer-reviewed journals, academic conferences, educational webinars, and more. [LINK]

Thanks to Kolobyte and Alphabot for letting us use their music in the show!

If you have questions or feedback please send us emails at materialism.podcast@gmail.com or connect with us on social media: Instagram, Twitter.

Materialism Team: Taylor Sparks, Andrew Falkowski, & Jared Duffy.

Textiles are all around us, they are literally woven into nearly every part of our daily lives. From the everyday materials in the clothes we wear to the specialty materials in parachutes, spacesuits, and even bulletproof armor. They play a bigger role than we often think about but what exactly is a textile? We sit down with Kate Winning from Oxford Space to explore the world of textiles, breaking down the different types, how they are turned from fiber into usable materials, and their wide-ranging applications.

Sparks Death Star Sweater [LINK]

This episode of the Materialism Podcast is sponsored by Momentum Transfer. Visit their website for more details about their measurement services. [LINK]

The Materialism Podcast is sponsored by Materials Today, an Elsevier community dedicated to the creation and sharing of materials science knowledge and experience through their peer-reviewed journals, academic conferences, educational webinars, and more. [LINK]

Thanks to Kolobyte and Alphabot for letting us use their music in the show!

If you have questions or feedback please send us emails at materialism.podcast@gmail.com or connect with us on social media: Instagram, Twitter.

Materialism Team: Taylor Sparks, Andrew Falkowski, & Jared Duffy.

Many digital models use hard boundaries to simulate how materials change, but the real world is rarely that clean. Phase field modeling takes a more natural approach, capturing the gradual, messy transitions that actually occur. This makes it ideal for simulating things like crack growth or dendrite formation. Taylor sits down with Dr. Jake Bair, an assistant professor at Oklahoma State University to discuss how it works and the history behind it.

Link of NISTs Phase Field Hub [HERE]

This episode was Sponsored by California Nanotechnologies. Check out their upcoming SPS/FAST Experts Workshop in beautiful San Diego at the link. [HERE]

This episode of the Materialism Podcast is sponsored by Momentum Transfer. Visit their website for more details about their measurement services. [LINK]

The Materialism Podcast is sponsored by Materials Today, an Elsevier community dedicated to the creation and sharing of materials science knowledge and experience through their peer-reviewed journals, academic conferences, educational webinars, and more.

Thanks to Kolobyte and Alphabot for letting us use their music in the show!

If you have questions or feedback please send us emails at materialism.podcast@gmail.com or connect with us on social media: Instagram, Twitter.

Materialism Team: Taylor Sparks, Andrew Falkowski, & Jared Duffy.

Having access to advanced characterization tools sounds great but sadly they aren't easily attainable. Momentum Transfer seeks to remedy this by offering mail-in access to synchrotron X-ray powder diffraction and scattering measurements. Taylor sits down with Dr. Maxwell Terban co-founder of Momentum Transfer to go over the technology and his history with it. They also discuss some interesting uses of the technology including the characterization of Neanderthal campfire ash.

This episode of the Materialism Podcast is sponsored by Momentum Transfer. Visit their website for more details about their measurement services. [LINK]

he Materialism Podcast is sponsored by the American Ceramics Society. Visit them, at ceramics.org/materialism to unlock full access to the Bulletin with a free ACerS membership.

The Materialism Podcast is sponsored by Materials Today, an Elsevier community dedicated to the creation and sharing of materials science knowledge and experience through their peer-reviewed journals, academic conferences, educational webinars, and more.

Thanks to Kolobyte and Alphabot for letting us use their music in the show!

If you have questions or feedback please send us emails at materialism.podcast@gmail.com or connect with us on social media: Instagram, Twitter.

Materialism Team: Taylor Sparks, Andrew Falkowski, & Jared Duffy.

The 2025 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to pioneers in the field of MOFs, but what exactly is a MOF? We sit down with Dr. Matthew J. Cliffe, an associate professor at the University of Cambridge, to discuss what makes metal–organic frameworks deserving of a Nobel Prize. Our conversation ranges from their potential role in capturing CO₂ from the atmosphere to the unique methods used to characterize these remarkable materials.

Matthew's faculty page [LINK]

This episode is sponsored by the American Ceramics Society Learning Center. Visit ceramics.org/materialism to learn more or use code MATERIALISM to get $100 off your next On-Demand course registration.

This Materialism Podcast is sponsored by Materials Today, an Elsevier community dedicated to the creation and sharing of materials science knowledge and experience through their peer-reviewed journals, academic conferences, educational webinars, and more.

Thanks to Kolobyte and Alphabot for letting us use their music in the show!

If you have questions or feedback please send us emails at materialism.podcast@gmail.com or connect with us on social media: Instagram, Twitter.

Materialism Team: Taylor Sparks, Andrew Falkowski, & Jared Duffy.

https://www.msm.cam.ac.uk/people/academic-staff-overview/cliffe

3D printing and SPS(Spark Plasma Sintering) are two incredible techniques that are best suited for different purposes, but what if there was a way to combine them to open up a whole new world of possibilities. We sit down with Christopher Melnyk, Director of Business Development at CalNano to talk about how they are achieving this combination. We explore the different parts that make up this new hybrid approach as well as the possible use cases that exist.

This episode was Sponsored by California Nanotechnologies. Check out their upcoming SPS/FAST Experts Workshop in beautiful San Diego at the link [[HERE](https://www.calnanocorp.com/spsworkshop)].

The Materialism Podcast is sponsored by the American Ceramics Society. Visit them, at this link [HERE] to unlock full access to the Bulletin with a free ACerS membership.

This Materialism Podcast is sponsored by Materials Today, an Elsevier community dedicated to the creation and sharing of materials science knowledge and experience through their peer-reviewed journals, academic conferences, educational webinars, and more.

Thanks to Kolobyte and Alphabot for letting us use their music in the show!

If you have questions or feedback please send us emails at materialism.podcast@gmail.com or connect with us on social media: Instagram, Twitter.

Materialism Team: Taylor Sparks, Andrew Falkowski, & Jared Duffy.