Mostafa Bedewy Selected for NAE’s 2026 Frontiers of Engineering Symposium
The National Academy of Engineering (NAE) has selected University of Pittsburgh Associate Professor Mostafa Bedewy to participate in the prestigious Grainger Foundation Frontiers of Engineering 2026 Symposium. The three-day event welcomes 74 of the brightest emerging engineers across industry, government, and academia to share ideas, solve problems, and network.
The University of Texas at Austin will host the symposium with Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) in Austin, Texas, on September 21 – 24. A cross-disciplinary cohort of early-career engineers recognized for their exceptional research will explore four overarching themes:
- Innovation in Bioengineered Materials
- Compute Challenges for Artificial Intelligence
- Agriculture as a System-of-Systems: From Molecules to Markets
- Hypersonics
“I am honored to be selected for the 2026 symposium,” said Bedewy, who also serves as Graduate Program Coordinator of Materials Science and Engineering in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science at the Swanson School of Engineering and leads the NanoProduct Lab. “What excites me most is the interdisciplinary nature of this unique event. As engineering challenges become increasingly complex and disciplinary boundaries become less rigid, forums like this one are essential. Many of the most important advances in materials science and manufacturing engineering will depend on our ability to think across fields and build connections between different research communities.”
Bedewy’s research focuses on the advanced manufacturing and process science of functional nanomaterials, with particular emphasis on laser-induced graphene, carbon nanomaterials, and polymer-derived materials for flexible electronic and bioelectronic devices. By integrating materials science, manufacturing engineering, nanotechnology, and biointerfaces, his group develops new processes and material platforms for applications including biosensing, neural interfaces, medical technologies, energy systems, and implantable or wearable devices.
His recent research into using laser-induced graphene to develop flexible microelectrodes and neurochemical biosensors was selected as a cover feature in Issue 7 of Advanced Materials Technologies. Bedewy’s work blending laser-induced graphene with kirigami to develop transparent barriers that block harmful electromagnetic interference was also a cover feature in ACS Applied Engineering Materials. In May 2025, Bedewy received a $549,947 NSF grant to research new ways to use machine learning to model, characterize, simulate, and predict growth of iron nanoparticles.
Bedewy has also received many prestigious awards including an NSF CAREER Award in 2023, the Frontiers of Materials Award from the Minerals, Metals, and Materials Society (TMS) in 2022, and the Outstanding Young Investigator Award from the Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineers’ Manufacturing and Design (IISE M&D) Division in 2020.
Bedewy joins a group of Swanson School faculty who have previously participated in the symposium, including Di Gao, associate professor of chemical and petroleum engineering and W. K. Whiteford Faculty Fellow; Steven Little, distinguished professor and department chair of chemical and petroleum engineering; Patrick Loughlin, professor of bioengineering and associate dean for faculty affairs; and Warren Ruder, associate professor of bioengineering.
“Mostafa, who has secondary appointments in bioengineering, chemical and petroleum engineering, and industrial engineering, embodies the cross-disciplinary spirit of the Frontiers of Engineering symposium,” said Heng Ban, Richard K. Mellon Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science and interim associate dean for research and facilities. “He will be an excellent representative of Pitt and the Swanson School, and I’m excited to see what he brings back from this important event.”