This MRSEC, led by Columbia University in partnership with City College of New York, Harvard University, Barnard College, and the University of the Virgin Islands, encompasses two IRGs that build higher dimensional materials from lower dimensional structures with unprecedented levels of control.

The Center for Emergent Materials (CEM) performs innovative multidisciplinary science focused on discovery and engineering of emergent materials to enable novel phenomena and phases. CEM seeks to enhance the strong scientific community essential to the future of this endeavor through vigorous engagement in improving participation by the relatively untapped resources of women and underrepresented minorities. The CEM, established in 2008, is located at The Ohio State University and funded by a National Science Foundation MRSEC award.

Established in 1994, the Princeton Center for Complex Materials at Princeton University is dedicated to exploring the frontiers of complexity in materials science — bringing together over 30 faculty from six departments in the natural sciences and engineering. The Center supports two Interdisciplinary Research Groups that will accelerate exploration of quantum technologies and biology-inspired materials. The development of topological quantum materials is crucial for catalyzing next-generation quantum technologies for sensing, computing, and communicating. 

The UC San Diego Materials Research Science and Engineering Center fosters research, education, and outreach across the disciplines of engineering, physical sciences, and biological sciences, with a focus on new materials and new materials properties.  It is developing two major themes: using computational models to predict and guide the self-assembly of materials from the nano- to mesoscales; and deploying the tools of synthetic biology to create soft materials that incorporate living components.

The University of Delaware Center for Hybrid, Active, and Responsive Materials (UD CHARM) is an NSF MRSEC spanning UD and several strategic external academic and national laboratory partnerships. The Center is advancing foundational understanding of new materials driven by theoretical and computational predictions paired with cutting-edge experiments to enable the integration of unconventional, ultra-small, building blocks.

The major theme of the Cornell MRSEC is mastery of materials at the atomic and molecular level.  New ways to synthesize, characterize and understand interfaces and surfaces at the atomic and molecular scales must continue to be invented and exploited to enable forefront discoveries in many fields.

The Materials Research Science and Engineering Center at the University of California, Santa Barbara will carry out research within three Interdisciplinary Research Groups or IRGs. The three IRGs address fundamental problems in materials research that could not be advanced without contributions from a team of interdisciplinary and collaborative domain experts.

The traditional home for research on materials at the University of Pennsylvania (PENN) is the Laboratory for Research on the Structure of Matter (LRSM). The LRSM is an autonomous entity, with its own building and laboratory space, which was created specifically to foster collaborative, interdisciplinary research on the PENN campus.

The University of Washington Molecular Engineering Materials Center (MEM-C) is forging new materials-research frontiers through team-based development of novel electronic and photonic materials relevant to future high-tech applications.