Materialism: A Materials Science Podcast

Taylor Sparks and Andrew Falkowski speak with University of Arizona researcher Marat Latypov about aluminium's transition from a scarce, expensive metal to a widely used engineering material. They discuss extraction, corrosion resistance, precipitation hardening, electrical wiring and automotive applications, and the technical difficulties of recycling mixed scrap.

Hosted by Taylor Sparks, Andrew Falkowski

NASA aerospace engineer Nate Olson joins Taylor Sparks and Andrew Falkowski to discuss the materials and engineering behind spacecraft thermal protection. Topics include blunt-body designs, Apollo’s ablative heat shield, the Artemis I heat-shield anomaly and future protection systems. The scientific discussion is part of the Materialism materials-science series.

Hosted by Taylor Sparks, Andrew Falkowski

Taylor Sparks and Andrew Falkowski discuss autonomous materials laboratories with Radical AI co-founder and CEO Joseph Krause. They examine instrument integration and data-access limitations, the MATRIX vision-language model, language-model embeddings for Bayesian optimization, and how to measure the contribution of scientific intuition. Krause also explains the choice to pursue manufacturing alongside discovery, emphasizing production data and process know-how. The episode connects automated experimentation with the practical challenges of developing and scaling new alloys.

Hosted by Taylor Sparks, Andrew Falkowski

Taylor Sparks and Oklahoma State University researcher Jake Bair discuss the history and methods of phase-field modelling. They explain how diffuse interfaces represent material transitions and support simulations of crack growth and dendritic structures. The episode links listeners to NIST’s Phase Field Community Hub for further technical resources.

Hosted by Taylor Sparks