Instron machines in Kemper Hall
Materials science involves the design and development of materials for engineering purposes. Accordingly, materials research groups at UC Davis are involved in a broad spectrum of disciplines which range from metallurgy to solid state physics. The materials science central facilities, which are located in the basement of Kemper Hall, are home to the program's mechanical test frames and electron microscopes. Since there are not a whole lot of windows in the basement, this can be quite depressing for researchers.
If you enjoy breaking things, you may want to take Engineering 45 and watch different metals fail under the might of the all powerful Instron tensile testers. This page could probably be more exciting, but I can't think about anything exciting to say without sounding even more nerdy.
While a distinct field of study, the materials science program operates under the combined Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science.
