Babak Anasori, Ph.D.

Reilly Rising Star Associate Professor

School of Materials Engineering

School of Mechanical Engineering
email: banasori[at]purdue.edu

About Dr. Anasori: 

Dr. Babak Anasori received his PhD from Drexel University in 2014 in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, the birthplace of MXenes. After completing his PhD, he served as a Postdoctoral Associate from 2014 to 2016, then became a Research Assistant Professor at the A.J. Drexel Nanomaterials Institute and the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at Drexel University. In 2019, he began his independent career as an Assistant Professor at IUPUI. In 2023, he was recruited to Purdue University through Purdue’s Moveable Dream Hires initiative as the Reilly Rising Star Associate Professor with tenure, holding joint appointments in the School of Materials Engineering and the School of Mechanical Engineering.

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Since 2015, Dr. Anasori has co-discovered more than 60 MXene compositions with increasingly complex chemistries, expanding the compositional and structural space of this family of 2D materials. Among these discoveries, he is one of the inventors of the subfamily of ordered double-transition metal MXenes, discovered during his postdoctoral research. This breakthrough was recognized as one of the “Biggest Moments in Chemistry of 2015” by the American Chemical Society. His lab later discovered high-entropy MXenes in 2021, further expanding the tunability and compositional diversity of the MXene family. In 2025, his lab reported ~ 40 novel MXenes containing two to nine transition metals in Science. The work was featured by Nature News with the headline, “Chemists cram record nine metals into trendy 2D material.”

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Dr. Anasori's current research focuses on the synthesis and characterization of novel MXenes and their metal and ceramic composites. He is among the Global Highly Cited Researchers since 2019 recognized by the Web of Science. In 2023, ScholarGPS identified Dr. Anasori as the number #1 scholar in Mechanical Engineering in the past five years in the USA. Dr. Anasori has received several national and international awards, including NSF/Science Visualization Challenge in 2011 and 2013, the Diamond Award in ACerS Graduate Excellence in Materials Science (GEMS) in 2012, the Materials Research Society (MRS) Postdoctoral Award in 2016, Emerging Leaders of 2020 by the Journal of Physics, Condensed Matter, Drexel 40-under-40 in 2021, the 2021 WIN Rising Star Award in Nanoscience and Nanotechnology, the 2024 Abraham M. Max Distinguished Professor Award from Purdue School of Engineering, the 2024 Early Discovery Award by the American Ceramic Society (ACerS), the Rising Star Award by Materials Todayand, and the 2024 Kavli Foundation Early Career Lectureship in Materials Science by MRS.

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Dr. Anasori has originated and organized multiple international student competitions, including NanoArtography and Science in Video (SciVid). He was the inagural  chair of the Materials Research Society (MRS) Early Career Professionals Subcommittee from 2019 to 2024. His is currently the Vice Chair of the MRS Career Advancement Committee and he will be the one of Chairs of the MRS Fall 2027 Meeting.