Rice University and Advanced Material Development Inc. (AMD Nano) and have signed a three-year Strategic Master Agreement for Research Teaming, establishing a framework for collaborative research in materials science and engineering.
The agreement provides a shared starting point for future projects. Each project will require a separate research plan defining its scope, budget, schedule, principal investigator and deliverables.
Future work will combine Rice’s research and characterization capabilities with AMD Nano’s application-led development, engineering, scale-up and commercialization experience. Potential areas include multifunctional materials, coatings and composites, sensing and electromagnetic and thermal material systems.
Projects may be funded directly by AMD Nano or pursued with U.S. federal agencies where the parties identify a shared priority, across defense and wider dual-use markets. The framework itself does not announce a funded project or award.
The agreement builds on existing joint work, including advanced radar materials for a U.S. Army program announced in 2024. That collaboration involved Rice’s Department of Materials Science and NanoEngineering and Pulickel Ajayan’s research group.
“Our work with Rice has shown what can be achieved when strong materials research is connected from the start to a practical need,” said Richard Lee, CEO of AMD Nano. “This agreement gives us a long-term way to build projects together and respond when an opportunity emerges, whether in defense or a wider dual-use market.”
“We are excited to continue our work with AMD towards the development of nanoengineered materials that could be useful for a variety of applications,” said Ajayan, the Benjamin M. and Mary Greenwood Anderson Professor in Materials Science at Rice. “Our prior experience suggests that such collaborations can bridge the gap between fundamental science and practical applications and accelerate the time line for translational research.”
The agreement took effect on Aug. 15 and runs for three years with the option to extend it by mutual agreement. Specific projects will be announced separately after the corresponding research plans are agreed.