Taylor D. Sparks

Dr. Sparks is an Assistant Professor of Materials Science and Engineering Department at the University of Utah. He is originally from Utah and an alumnus of the department he now teaches in. Before graduate school he worked at Ceramatec Inc. working on advanced ceramics for energy applications. He did his MS in Materials at UCSB in 2009 and his PhD in Applied Physics at Harvard University in 2012 in David Clarke’s laboratory. He then did a postdoc with Ram Seshadri in the Materials Research Laboratory at UCSB.

He is currently the Director of the Materials Characterization Lab at the University of Utah and teaches classes on ceramics, materials science, characterization, and technology commercialization. His current research centers on the discovery, synthesis, characterization, and properties of new materials for energy applications. He is a pioneer in the emerging field of materials informatics whereby big data, data mining, and machine learning are leveraged to solve challenges in materials science.