A strand of spider silk is five times stronger than a steel cable of the same weight, said Hannes Schniepp of the Department of Applied Science at William & Mary. His lab has been unraveling the secrets behind the strength of the brown recluse spider.

A team of scientists at William & Mary led by Myriam Cotten is investigating a virtue of the striped bass: The fish contain biomolecules that have shown promise for therapeutic use in human medicine.

The stuff we call “dirt” or “soil” or “earth” on Earth is known as “regolith” on the moon and Mars, but dust is dust wherever you go.

Saskia Mordijck, assistant professor of applied science, will serve as the global leader of the Joint Research Target for the Office of Fusion Energy Sciences, working with labs throughout the world to solve the complicated problem of refueling fusion reactions.

It’s a question that has vexed fusion scientists for decades: What would it take to refuel the sun? Now, thanks to a partnership between the U.S. Department of Energy and a team of William & Mary researchers, we will be closer than ever to figuring it out.

Hannes Schniepp estimates the new technique is 10 times less expensive and at least 100 times quicker than graphene-inspection techniques now in use.

As William & Mary celebrates the 10th anniversary of the Plumeri Awards for Faculty Excellence, these are just a few of the distinguished professors to receive that honor.

Jonathan Frey is William & Mary’s new makerspace director.

Christopher Weld, Applied Science Ph.D. student, is recipient of A&S Graduate Research Symposium Excellence in Scholarship Award.

Ryan Chaban is a first-year Ph.D. student in William & Mary’s Department of Applied Science, working on some of the many knotty scientific problems that must be solved before we can tap the virtually limitless supply of energy that nuclear fusion can yield. He's also an award-winning essayist.

Applied Science hosts summer internship for top-performing students in the life sciences from Williamsburg high schools.

William & Mary has joined six other Virginia research institutions in a formal agreement that will encourage shared use of scientific instrumentation.

Joel Levine, research professor in William & Mary’s Department of Applied Science, is being honored for a NASA career that spans four decades.

Celebrating a semester of successful undergraduate Honors theses completions.

Nikolas Vann, Applied Science Ph.D. student, is recipient of A&S Graduate Research Symposium Excellence in Undergraduate Mentoring Award.

Sofya Zaytseva, Applied Science Ph.D. student, is recipient of A&S Graduate Research Symposium Excellence in Scholarship Award.

An international collaboration between William & Mary scientists and colleagues at the University of Oxford has discovered that the brown recluse makes extra-strong silk by spinning loops into each strand.

Journal Club, a now-thriving weekly gathering, was founded by two Ph.D. students in the spring as a venue for grad students to share and discuss research.

Successful Defense Completions

Maria Cristina Picardo, Applied Science Research Scientist, gives talk at the 2016 Annual Meeting of the Society for Neuroscience in San Diego, CA.

ISC 3 came on line for the beginning of the semester and was dedicated at a Sept. 22 ceremony held in conjunction with the fall meeting of the university’s Board of Visitors.

Integrated Science Center Open House

Work is still going on, but the third phase of William & Mary’s Integrated Science Center will be open when classes start. (With one exception.)

They're not unique to William & Mary, but research labs structured along the multi-level model are surprisingly rare outside of William & Mary. You see, we operate in that sweet spot between the small college and the enormous research institute.

The new 113,000-square-foot ISC 3 is scheduled to be fully on line in fall.

Dr. Joel Levine, Applied Science Research Professor, will present at NASA workshop in New Orleans facility.

Seth Weinberg, former post-doc in the Department of Applied Science has accepted a tenure-track Assistant Professor position at VCU.

Claire Kaplan, a 2009 W&M undergraduate research student supervised by Prof. Gregory Smith, currently a Clinical Psychology doctoral student at University of Maryland College Park, receives NSF fellowship award.

Lydia Whitaker, business manager for the applied science department, is the recipient of the 2016 Charles and Virginia Duke Award.

Ph.D. student Andrew Kottick has determined exactly which cells in the brain are responsible for respiration. His work will be honored at the Graduate Research Symposium March 19.

The Department of Applied Science moves to the 113,000 square-foot, third phase of the Integrated Science Center (ISC3) in May 2016

Prof. Martyn Goulding from the Salk Institute will give a seminar about his research on Oct. 30.

W&M professors are part of a collaboration that has begun to unravel the secret of the silkworm, an important first step in learning how to produce silks that are more alive than dead.

EVENT ANNOUNCEMENT: Oct. 7, 10:00am-12:00, Sadler Center York Room. Prof. Shengfeng Cheng will introduce Virginia Tech's "MACR" graduate program in Macromolecular Science and Engineering.

EVENT ANNOUNCEMENT: Oct. 7, 10:00-11:00am, Sadler Center York Room. Prof. Shengfeng Cheng from Virginia Tech (Physics Department/Macromolecules and Interfaces Institute) will speak about his research and introduce VT's "MACR" graduate program.

Midstream officials have been working in conjunction with Mark Hinders, professor of applied science at William & Mary, to develop technology to track oil spills under ice.

An interdisciplinary team of William & Mary experts gathered Wednesday night hoping to dispel fears through understanding.

Scientists are working to manipulate and harness these atomic-level surface interactions, paving the way for the development of a whole new range of high-tech devices and applications.

Applied Science hosts summer internship for top-performing students in the life sciences from Williamsburg high schools.

Christopher A. Del Negro, recipient of 2014 Plumeri Award for Faculty Excellence at William & Mary.

Discovery Channel Canada airs a TV feature of our brown recluse silk project in their science show Daily Planet (7:00 pm show on March 10).

Ellen Stofan '83, NASA's chief scientist, was on campus during the week before Charter Day.

Gregory D. Smith, recipient of 2013 Plumeri Award for Faculty Excellence at William & Mary.

A trans-Atlantic collaboration of scientists has revealed the structure of a key protein of silk and discovered a previously unknown behavior of this protein: to self-organize into tiny fibrils a single molecule in diameter.

Like most inventors, Jefferson Lab scientist Xin Zhao's moment of inspiration was prompted by a need, and the result was an invention that could someday see batteries in electric vehicles and similar devices boosted or replaced by high-power, high-capacity, fast-charge/discharge energy storage systems using graphene.

The William & Mary group is part of a new industry-academia-government collaboration, the Virginia Nanoelectronics Center (ViNC). ViNC is based at the University of Virginia; the partnership also includes Old Dominion University.