Graduate student Jason Christopher has been selected to receive a 2014 National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate (NDSEG) Fellowship.  The NDSEG Fellowship is sponsored and funded by the Department of Defense (DoD).  NDSEG selections are made by the Air Force Research Laboratory/Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFRL/AFOSR), the Office of Naval Research (ONR), and the Army Research Office (ARO). The American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) administers the NDSEG Fellowship.

Jason's research is focused on developing experimental and theoretic techniques to investigate nanoscale friction and strain engineering and use them to explore the effect of strain on 2D crystal properties and emergence of exotic strain-generated phenomena. Strain is an effective means of tuning mechanical, electrical and optical properties of 2D crystals like graphene, MoS2 and hBN. Strain can create novel phenomena such as pseudo magnetic fields and exciton confinement.