The Materials Research Science and Engineering Center (MRSEC) at Princeton University supports a broad based interdisciplinary research program in the area of complex materials, including polymers and soft materials, electronic materials, and biomaterials. The Center also supports a wide range of education activities, including science curriculum support for middle and high school teachers, a summer outreach program for high school students, and an African outreach program. The Center supports well-maintained and accessible shared experimental facilities and interacts with industry and other sectors at local, regional, national and international levels.

The Center's research is organized into three interdisciplinary research groups (IRGs). IRG 1, Interplay of Magnetism and Transport in Correlated Electronic Materials, focuses on charge and spin transport in complex, correlated electronic materials. IRG 2 on Guided Self-Assembly investigates new methods for fabricating large-scale assemblies of patterned structures with features on the nano and micrometer scale. Potential applications are in the areas of nanomagnetics, manipulating biomolecules on a nanoscale, as well as photonics. Adhesion, Deformation, and Transport at Contacts in Small Structures (IRG 3) is an entirely new effort with focus on small scale contacts that are of importance in microelectronic, photonic, and micro-electromechanical devices. Two large seed projects are devoted to patterned assemblies of functional cell-based biomaterials, which propose to combine protein design with the design of novel interfaces between synthetic materials and living cells, and to heteroepitaxy and electronic structure of high dielectric constant oxides.