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Kwang Kim’s Laboratory, namely Active Materials and Smart Living (AMSL) Laboratory, provides an academic environment to the UNLV students and researchers to learn and develop necessary engineering skills and attitudes that are needed to become great innovators throughout the course of their career. The laboratory is adequately setup to study engineering science in connection with Matter and Energy that has the broader economic-and-sociological impact on “sustainability and health engineering”.
Kwang J. (Jin) Kim is Distinguished Professor and Southwest Gas Professor of Energy and Matter of the Mechanical Engineering Department at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV). Prior to joining UNLV in Fall 2012, he was University of Nevada, Reno (UNR) Foundation Professor and Chair of the Mechanical Engineering Department (2007-2012). He graduated from Yonsei University, Korea, in 1987 and received his MS and Ph.D. from Arizona State University (ASU) in 1989 and 1992, respectively. Later, he completed a postdoctoral study at the University of Maryland-College Park UMCP (1993-1995). His industrial experience includes Senior Research Engineer at Thermal Electric Devices, Inc. (1995-1997) and Chief Scientist at Environmental Robots, Inc. (1997-2001), Albuquerque NM.
His research interests are in a broad spectrum of “Active Materials/Sensors” and “Energy Systems.” He has authored/ co-authored more than 420 technical publications including 220 referred journal papers and 3 monographs and was awarded 5 U.S. patents. He is a recipient of the 2021 SSH Lifetime Achievement Award from SPIE, the 2016 Harry Reid Silver State Researcher Award, the 2016 Barrick Distinguished Scholar Award, the NSHE 2015 The UNLV Distingushed Professorship, Regents' Researcher Award, the 2011 UNR Foundation Professorship, the 2006 UNR Lemelson Award for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, the 2002 Ralph E. Powe Junior Faculty Enhancement Award from Oak Ridge Associated Universities. He is a Fellow of ASME (2007) and National Academy of Inventors (NAI) (2017) and currently serves on several editorial boards of Smart Materials and Structures (SMS), International Journal of Smart and Nano Materials (TSNM), Scientific Reports, and Actuators.
ScholarGPS, a digital research analytics platform, has ranked Prof. Kwang Kim among the leading researchers in their respective fields of study. The ranking places Dr. Kim in the top 0.05% of researchers worldwide in his field. Kim, director of the Active Materials and Smart Living Laboratory at UNLV, was ranked as the No. 7 scholar for his lifetime contributions to the field of smart materials. For more information, visit Highly Ranked Scholars.
Summer 2024:
Liya Napollion successfully defended her dissertation entitled, “INVESTIGATING IONIC POLYMER METAL COMPOSITE CAPACITORS THROUGH FABRICATION, EXPERIMENTATION, AND MODELING.” Liya joined Sargent & Lundy (https://www.sargentlundy.com/) – Nuclear Power division, as a senior level mechanical engineer.
Spring 2024:
A number of AMSL students gave two poster presentations the 2024 Waste Management (WM) conference in Phoenix, AZ (March 10-14, 2024). The titles of the posters are "Wearable Soft-Robot Systems for Enhanced Worker Capability and Safety," and "Development of TPU-based Polymer Sensors," respectively. Both projects are funded by the U.S. Department of Energy via BSRA (Battelle Savannah River Alliance, LLC).
Fall 2023:
Dr. Junghwa LEE (PhD in Analytical Chemistry from Korea University, Seoul in S. Korea) joined AMSL as Senior Research Staff and Lab Manager. She is an experienced analytical chemist and is from Mississippi State University.
Spring 2023:
Liya Napollion was awarded an intership at DoE PNNL. Congratulations to Liya!.
In March of 2023, PhD students, Liya Napollion and John Faccinto, gave their poster presentations at the 2023 Waste Management conference in Phoenix, AZ. Also, Alex Washington and Liya Napollion was encouraged by Nichole Nelson-Jean, Associate Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Field Operations for the Office of Environmental Management (EM).
Justin Neubauer successfully defended his PhD dissertation, entitled “MECHANOELECTRICAL BEHAVIOR IN POLYVINYL CHLORIDE (PVC) BASED SOFT POLYMER GEL SMART SENSORS FOR SOFT ROBOTIC APPLICATIONS.” He is currently with Mission Support and Test Services (MSTS) LLC as Senior Engineer. MSTS manages the Nevada National Security Site (NNSS).
Congratulations to Justin!In October 2022, two AMSL PhD students, Liya Napoleon and John Faccinto gave presentations at AMSM2022 (Active Materials and Soft Mechatronics) at Georgia Tech in Atlanta, and they won the 2nd and 3rd prize in the category of Best Presentation Award in Sensor Technology. Prof. Kim was one of the general conference chairs for the conference. https://amsm2022.org/
John Faccinto and Alex Washington of AMSL PhD graduate students gave a nice poster presentation at the 1st Annual Competitive Research Award Workshop of DOE/EM/MSIPP managed by Savannah River National Laboratory in North Augusta, S. Carolina. 
Nichole Nelson-Jean, Associate Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Field Operations for
the Office of Environmental Management (EM) visited our laboratory. Our students and Nichole discussed about their on-going research and STEM projects with her. Also, John Faccinto, PhD student of ASML, and Prof. Kim gave a progress-presentation to her regarding AMSL's project entitled "Wearable Soft‐Robot Systems for Enhanced Worker Capability and Safety."
Zachary Frank successfully defended his PhD dissertation entitled “POLYVINYL CHLORIDE GELS: THEORETICAL MODELING OF THEIR ACTUATION MECHANISM AND CHARACTERIZATION OF THEIR PROPERTIES.” Zachary is joining Apple in Cupertino, CA, as mechanical engineer (Good luck!).
Our great pleasure to share the news that Mohammed Al-Rubaiai of Michigan State University (Prof. Xiaobo Tan’s group) won the Best Student Paper Gold Award for his paper entitled “Control-oriented nonlinear modeling of polyvinyl chloride (PVC) gel actuators” at the 2021 AACC Modeling, Estimation and Control Conference. Congrats to Mohammed! Zachary Frank and Prof. Kwang Kim are co-authors for this paper.
The SPIE Lifetime Achievement Awards recognize senior researchers who have made significant contributions to the field of Smart Structures and Materials (SSM) or Nondestructive Evaluation (NDE) and who have been instrumental in their growth. The award decision is based on the extent of the nominee’s impact on our community and participation in the SPIE Smart Structures + Nondestructive Evaluation symposium. The prize consists of an SPIE certificate and a plenary talk at the symposium the following year. The 2021 SSM Lifetime Achievement Award was presented to Prof. Kwang Kim on March 22, 2021. 
Alexandrea Washington, a PhD student of AMSL@UNLV, was selected as a 3-year NASA graduate study fellowship awardee. Congratulations to Alex! For more inforormation 
Rebecca Xinke Cao, undergraduate researcher of Active Materials and Smart Living laboratory, was selected as one of May 2019 Outstanding UNLV graduates. With a 3.97 GPA, Rebecca Xinke Cao is graduating with two bachelor's degrees — in mechanical engineering and computer science — a minor in mathematics.
Blake Naccarato, PhD student, got the third place award in the poster competition at 2019 Nevada NASA EPSCoR meeting held in Reno, NV.
Four of AMSL PhD students (Robert Hunt, Zakai Olsen, Zachary Frank, and Justine Neubauer) traveled to S. Korea (KAIST) and participated in the 3rd Active Materials and Soft Mechatronics workshop and gave their talks. For more info (http://amsm2018.org/?ckattempt=1). Photo: Zakai Olsen is giving his invited talk on IPMC modeling at the workshop.
At the 3rd Active Materials and Soft Mechatronics workshop, Prof. Kim was received “the Pioneer Award” for his life-long pioneering work on artificial muscle and related research work.
Prof. Kim gave a talk at 2018 UNLV Research Day. His talk was entitled “Studying Soft-robots Equipped with Artificial Muscle.” This talk was broad-based for general public including large number of middle school students and teachers from the Las Vegas area. 
Five new PhD students joined AMSL. Nazanin Minaian, Liya Napollion, Justin Neubauer, Zakai Olsen, and Alex Washington. Nazanin, Liya, and Justin were undergraduate researchers at AMSL during their BS programs and decided to continue their PhD at AMSL under Prof. Kim’s supervision. All of them are working on soft-robot related projects funded by various funding agencies (NSF, DoD, DoE, etc.). 
Prof. Kim gave a keynote talk at AIM 2018 (IEEE/ASME International Conference on Advanced Intelligent Mechatronics)held in U of Auckland, New Zealand. The talk was entitled “Ionic Polymer-Metal Composites as a Candidate Underwater Active Material”.
Zakai Olsen was selected as one of MAY 2018 OUTSTANDING UNLV Graduates. UNLV president highlighted him at commencement. He finished his MS degree in May and continue to work toward PhD degree at AMSL.
Sarah Trabia defended her PhD dissertation entitled
Prof. Kwang Kim was selected as a Fellow of National Academy of Inventors (NAI) and will be inducted in April 2018 in Washington DC. Dr. Kim is the first NAI Fellow elected from the state of Nevada.More story
Qi Shen received his PhD in December and decided to take an offer from AMSL Holding as Senior Engineer. In the winter graduation, Qi was recognized as one of Winter Outstanding Graduates 2017.
UNLV's NSF/PIRE students along with other students from RPI, NYU, and U of Utah travelled to South Korea to visit KIST (Korea Institute of Science and Technology) for collaborative research in soft-robotics (hosted by Dr. Youngsu Cha of KIST). 
UNLV's NSF/PIRE students along with other students from RPI, NYU, and U of Utah travelled to Japan to visit a National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) center in Osaka for collaborative research and a workshop on soft-mechatronics (hosted by Dr. Kinji Asaka of AIST).
One of AMSL's graduate student, Zakai Olsen, was recently named as one the six ASME nominees for the 2017 New Faces of Engineering Program (see ASME News Vol. 36(4), 2017). This nomination annually spotlights the important contributions early career engineers and engineering students are making to the profession and to society.
Tyler Stalbaum successfully defended his PhD dissertation entitled "Ionic Electroactive Devices: Physics-based Modeling with Experimental Verification." He was, also, recognized by UNLV as one of the four outstanding winter graduates (for more information click here.) 
Summer of 2016: Prof. Kim and NSF PIRE students went to a field trip to S. Korea to collaborate with researchers from KAIST (Advanced Institute of Science and Technology). The goal of this collaborative international research project is to create advanced multifunctional Artificial Muscles (AMs) based on the unique properties of Ionic Polymer-Metal Composites (IPMCs) for soft robotics. In particular, this project will leverage expertise across the U.S. (UNLV, University of Utah, NYU, and RPI) and abroad (South Korea and Japan) to address critical technical challenges in AM technology and develop effective and reliable IPMC-based AM technology for soft robotic applications.
Spring of 2016: 
Prof. Kim, in collaboration with Prof. Jaeyun Moon, organized a mini-workshop on “3D Manufacturing” at the UNLV.
Fall of 2015: Prof. Kim's PIRE project was selected for funding by National Science Foundation. Another Prof. Kim's NASA project, in collaboration with University of Nevada, Reno, entitled "Advanced Transport Technologies for NASA Thermal Management/Control Systems," was selected for funding. AMSL's new logo was designed by Zakai Olsen's family. Nevada Lt Governor, Mark Hutchison, visited AMSL on September 24, 2015. 
Shelby Nelson successfully defended her MS thesis entitled, "Feasibility Study Of Custom Manufacturing Methods Of Ionic Polymer-Metal Composite Sensors" and was hired as Mechanical Engineer for GearWorks near the Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
NBD Nanotechnologies, Inc. (NBD), a start-up company from Boston, Massachusetts, UNLV, and the Korean Institute of Energy Research (KIER) entered into a license agreement for certain commercialization rights in and to a UNLV/KIER developed technology generally known as "Polymer-Based Porous Coatings Enhancing Condenser Performance." The technology came out of Prof. Kim’s laboratory. Spring 2024: Dr. Kim’s collaborative paper with KAIST (Prof. I.-K. Oh) was recently published in Nature Communications. The title of the paper is “Functionally antagonistic polyelectrolyte for electro-ionic soft actuator”. For more info: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-44719-z.
Spring 2023: :
Liya Napollion’s new paper on IPMC’s capacitive effect was published by Smart Materials and Structures
: see "Electrochemical performance of ionic polymer metal composite under tensile loading," Smart Mater. Struct. 32 (2023) 095025 (11pp); https://doi.org/10.1088/1361-665X/acecca. )
Spring 2023: :
Justin’s new paper on modeling work on PVC gel sensor was published by Polymers: see “Multiphysics Modeling Framework for Soft PVC Gel Sensors with Experimental Comparisons, ” Polymers, Vol. 15, 864 (2023; https://doi.org/10.3390/polym15040864. )
Fall 2022: :
Justin’s new paper on PVC and TPU soft gel sensors was published by Smart Materials and Structures: see “Tunable polyvinyl chloride (PVC) and thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU)-based soft polymer gel sensors,” Vol. 31, 115025, Smart Materials and Structures (2022; https://doi.org/10.1088/1361-665X/ac9a8f. )
Summer 2022: :
Our collaboration with Prof. Xiaobo Tan of Michigan State University was published in IEEE/ASME Transactions on Mechatronics [27(4), pp. 2168-2175; DOI: 10.1109/TMECH.2022.3175445]
Summer 2022: :
Alex Washington’s paper entitled “A physics-based modeling of a hydraulically amplified electrostatic actuator” was published in Journal of Physics Communications [https://doi.org/10.1088/2399-6528/ac8335].
Spring 2022: :
Zachary Frank’s paper entitled “On the mechanism of performance improvement of electroactive polyvinyl chloride (PVC) gel actuators via conductive fillers,” was published in Scientific Reports [https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-14188-9].
Spring 2022: :
Zachary Frank’s new paper on PVC gels was published by Smart Materials and Structures: “A study of electroactive polyvinyl chloride (PVC) gel actuators through the use of the electric modulus formalism and cyclic linear voltage sweeps,” [Zachary Frank et al 2022 Smart Mater. Struct. 31 035020; https://doi.org/10.1088/1361-665X/ac4e51].
Spring 2022: :
Zakai Olsen’s new theoretical paper was published by Smart Materials and Structures: “Approximate field measures for ionic polymer- metal composite materials and a simplified order- of-magnitude actuator model” [2022 Smart Mater. Struct. 31 025029; https://doi.org/10.1088/1361-665X/ac4876].
January 2022:
Zakai’s new paper was published by Smart Materials and Structures: see “Characterizing the transduction behavior of ionic polymer-metal composite actuators and sensors via dimensional analysis,” Smart Materials and Structures, Vol. 31, 025014 (2022; https://doi.org/10.1088/1361-665X/ac411e).
January 2022:
Justin’s new paper was published by Smart Materials and Structures: see ““A study of mechanoelectrical transduction behavior in polyvinyl chloride (PVC) gel as smart sensors,” Vol. 31, 015010, Smart Materials and Structures (2022; https://doi.org/10.1088/1361-665X/ac358f).
Note
We just noted that Prof. Kim’s patent application – Functional Coatings Enhancing Condenser Performancewas granted by USPTO (US10,525,504 on January 7, 2020) as well as Japanese Patent Office (JPO) (JP 6538651 on July 3, 2019). Abstract: Coatings for enhancing performance of materials surfaces, methods of producing the coating and coated substrates, and coated condensers are disclosed herein. More particularly, exemplary embodiments provide chemical coating materials useful for coating condenser components.
March 2021:
AMSL lab successfully and remotely presented 5 papers in the 2021 SPIE/SSM and NDE conference (see more info in conference papers):http://www.kwangjinkim.org/c_papers.html
Spring 2021
A book chapter authored by Alexandrea Washington, Justin Neubauer and Kwang J. Kim, "Soft actuators and their potential applications in rehabilitative devices," was published in a book entitled Soft Robotics in Rehabilitation. (Academic Press: ed. Amir Jafari, Nafiseh Ebrahimi, 2021, ISBN 9780128185384).
Prof. Kim and Zakai Olsen in collaboration with Prof. I.K. Oh of KAIST published an invited perspective paper on IPMC, entitled "Developing next generation ionic polymer– metal composite materials: perspectives for enabling robotics and biomimetics," for 50th anniversary issue of Polymer International (ed. T. Long) [DOI 10.1002/pi.6128; 70(1), pp. 7-9; 2021].
Fall 2020:
A book chapter entitled, “Ionic Polymer-Metal Composite (IPMC) Artificial Muscles in Underwater Environments: Review of Actuation, Sensing, Controls, and Applications to Soft Robotics,” was accepted for publication in an edited book by Derek A. Paley and Norman M. Wereley, Bioinspired Sensing, Actuation, and Control in Underwater Soft Robotic Systems (published by Springer Nature Switzerland AG). The chapter was written by AMSL members (Nazanin Minaian, Zakai J. Olsen, and Kwang J. Kim). Congratulations to Nazanin and Zakai!
A collaborative paper between UNLV (Justin Neubauer and Kwang Kim) and KIST/S. Korea entitled "Multidirectional Cylindrical Piezoelectric Force Sensor: Design and Experimental Validation," was just published in Sensors (for more information).
A collaborative paper between UNLV (Kwang Kim) and KAIST/S. Korea entitled, "Sulfur- and Nitrogen-Rich Porous π-Conjugated COFs as Stable Electrode Materials for Electro-Ionic Soft Actuators," was published in Advanced Functional Materials (for more information).
Fall 2019:
Robert Hunt’s work on soft-robots was recognized by:
1)
Synopsys’ blog on "Improving Product Design Using Biomimicry".
2)
Advanced Science News entitled "Robotic Dorsal Fins Help Us Understand Aquatic Movement."
3) the 42nd issue of the WW-EAP Newsletter
Summer 2019:
A paper (authored by Taeseon Hwang, Zachary Frank, Justin Neubauer, and Dr. Kwang Kim) entitled "High-performance polyvinyl chloride gel artificial muscle actuator with graphene oxide and plasticizer," was published in Scientific Report (more info). Two video files you can find from "Supplementary information" of this paper.
Robert Hunt’s paper entitled "A soft-robotic harbor porpoise pectoral fin driven by coiled polymer actuators as artificial muscles," was published in Advanced Intelligent Systems. Also, this paper was selected as back-cover (more info; also a video)
A collaborative paper with Prof. I.K. Oh of KAIST entitled "Collectively Exhaustive Electrodes Based on Covalent Organic Framework and Antagonistic Co-Doping for Electroactive Ionic Artificial Muscles," was recently published in Advanced Functional Materials (10.1002/adfm.201900161)
Spring 2019:
Dr. Jong Min Byun’s paper in Applied Surface Science was published. He is a former postdoc at AMSL and currently assistant professor of Materials Science and Engineering at Seoul National University of Science and Technology (SEOULTECH). The paper is entitled “Formation of a gold nanoparticle layer for the electrodes of ionic polymer–metal composites by electroless deposition process”
(https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apsusc.2018.11.068). Also, Qi Shen’s paper entitled “A robotic multiple-shape-memory ionic polymer–metal composite (IPMC) actuator:
modeling approach,” was published in Smart Materials and Structures (https://doi.org/10.1088/1361-665X/aaeb83). Qi is currently with ASML US Inc. as Sr. system engineer/Architect.
Fall 2018:
Zakai Olsen’s publication entitled “a reduced dimensional mapping approach for modeling IPMCs with computational efficiency and rapid design development applications,” came out in Smart Materials and Structures (2018: doi: https://doi.org/10.1088/1361-665X/aae8fc).
Spring 2018:
Sarah Trabia and Zakai Olsen just published a paper entitled "Understanding the Thermal Properties of Precursor-Ionomers to Optimize Fabrication Processes for Ionic Polymer-Metal Composites (IPMCs)" in Materials (2018; doi:10.3390/ma11050665). This is a collaborative work between UNLV and SKKU, S. Korea.
Fall 2017:
Prof. Kwang Kim’s collaborative research on Artificial Muscle with KAIST/Prof. I.-K Oh, was published in Advanced Science [S. Roy, J. Kim, M. Kotal, K. J. Kim, and I.-K. Oh, "Electroionic Antagonistic Muscles Based on Nitrogen-Doped Carbons Derived from Poly(Triazine-Triptycene)” 1700410 (2017)]. Also, this work was selected as back-cover.
A paper entitled "Soft but Powerful Artificial Muscles Based on 3D Graphene–CNT–Ni Heteronanostructures," was selected as the cover page by Small. This work was collaborative study between KAIST's Prof. Il-Kwon Oh and UNLV's Prof. Kwang Kim.
A paper entitled "A New High-Performance Ionic Polymer-Metal Composite Based on Nafion / Polyimide Blends, was published in Smart Materials and Structures, Vol. 26, 035015 (11pp) (2017, http://dx.doi.org/10.1088/1361-665X/aa57cd)
Spring of 2016:
AMSL students/researchers (Qi Shen, Sarah Trabia, TylerStalbaum, ViljarPalmre) published a paper in Scientific Reports, (DOI: 10.1038/srep24462) that is titled "A Multiple-Shape Memory Polymer-Metal Composite Actuator Capable of Programmable Control, Creating Complex 3D Motion of Bending, Twisting, and Oscillation.
Prof. Kim also published a collaborative paper with Prof. Il-Kwon Oh of KAIST in Advanced Materials. The paper is entitled "Sulfur and Nitrogen Co-Doped Graphene Electrodes for High-Performance Ionic Arti?cial Muscles." (DOI: 10.1002/adma.201505243)
Dr. Taeseon Hwang's paper entitled "A new ionic polymer–metal composite based on Nafion/poly(vinyl alcohol-co-ethylene) blends," was just published by Smart Materials and Structures. Also, Qi Shen with Viljar Palmre and Tyler Stalbaum, published a paper in Journal of Applied Physics - "A Comprehensive Physics-based Model Encompassing Variable Surface Resistance and Underlying Physics of Ionic Polymer-Metal Composite Actuators"
Md Bhuiya and Anupam Kumar’s review paper entitled “Metal hydrides in engineering systems, processes, and devices: a review of non-storage applications,” was published by International Journal of Hydrogen Energy (40/5, pp. 2231-2247, 2015).
BongJun Zhang’s paper entitled “Noncovalently assembled nanotubular porous layers for delaying of heating surface failure,” was published in Scientific Reports (4 : 6817 | DOI: 10.1038/srep06817)
Another collaborative paper with Tartu University, entitled “Ionic electroactive polymer artificial muscles in space applications,” was published by Scientific Reports (4 : 6913 | DOI: 10.1038/srep06913)
Viljar Palmre’s paper entitled “Nanothorn Electrodes for Ionic Polymer-Metal Composite Artificial Muscles,” was published in a Nature journal - Scientific Reports [4: 6176 | DOI: 10.1038/srep06176].
Dr. Kim's new book entitled "Biomimetic Robotic Artificial Muscles" (co-authored with Drs. Xiabo Tan, Hyouk Ryeol Choi, and David Pugal) was published by World Scientific in the spring of 2013.
Dr. Kim's artificial muscle research based on hydrogen gas is featured on Discovery News and, also, covered by "NewScientist" magazine. [ > ]
K. J. Kim and S. Tadokoro (ed.), "Electroactive Polymers for Robotic Application: Artificial Muscles and Sensors," Published by Springer, London [ > ]
M. Shahinpoor, K. J. Kim, and M. Mojarrad, "Artificial Muscles: Applications of Advanced Polymeric Nano-Composites" Published by Taylor and Francis-CRC, New York [ > ]
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