Welcome to the Mangolini Research Group, the Laboratory for Applied Surface Science (LASS) at The University of Texas at Austin. Our interdisciplinary group focuses on the study of the structural transformations and chemical reactions occurring on material surfaces and at solid/solid, solid/liquid interfaces under extreme environments and conditions far from equilibrium.
Most Recent News
Group members
09/2025 – Nicolas passed his preliminary exam! Well done, Nicolas!
08/2025 – A huge congratulations to Hsu-Ming for successfully defending his PhD thesis! Congratulations, Dr. Lien!
06/2025 – Logan passed his preliminary exam! Well done, Logan!
04/2025 – Owen passed his preliminary exam! Well done, Owen!
04/2025 – Jimmy successfully defended his PhD thesis. Congratulations, Dr. Yan!
Awards
04/2025 – Filippo was awarded the President’s Associates Graduate Teaching Excellence Award!
11/2024 – Congratulations to Filippo for his induction as a 2024 American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) Rising Star. The recognition was presented at the 2024 International Mechanical Engineering Congress & Exposition IMECE Conference (Portland, OR, November 2024)
11/2024 – Congratulations to Nicolas for being awarded the Dorothy M. and Earl S. Hoffman Award by the American Vacuum Society!
08/2024 – Nicolas was selected as finalist of the American Vacuum Society (AVS) National Graduate Student Award as well as of the AVS Applied Surface Science Division Graduate Student Award. Good luck!
08/2024 – Filippo was appointed as holder of the Cockrell Family Fellowship #4
Conferences
09/2025 – Nicolas and Filippo delivered two talks and two posters the 71st AVS International Symposium and Exhibition in Charlotte, NC!
07/2025 – Filippo presented the group work on the tribological behavior of alloyed amorphous carbon at EcoTrib 2025 (Zurich, Switzerland).
07/2025 – Filippo delivered a keynote talk at the 12th European Solid Mechanics Conference in Lyon (France).
06/2025 – Owen delivered an oral presentation on dynamic wetting of ionic liquids at the 99th ACS Colloid & Surface Science Symposium!
06/2025 – Filippo delivered two oral presentations on slippery infused surfaces and encapsulated ionic liquids at 2025 TechConnect World Innovation Conference & Expo.
06/2025 – Logan delivered an oral presentation on increasing the accuracy of AFM nanomechanical measurements at SPMConnect, TechConnect World Innovation Conference & Expo.
06/2025 – Logan delivered a talk at the 2025 Society of Experimental Mechanics (SEM) Annual Conference.
Publications
08/2025 – Our group contributed to the Surface Topography Challenge! Here is the paper in Tribology Letters.
07/2025 – Filippo presented the group work on the tribological behavior of alloyed amorphous carbon at EcoTrib 2025 (Zurich, Switzerland).
07/2025 – Owen’s work on the study of the interfacial structure of ionic liquids using dynamic wetting is published in the Journal of Colloid and Interface Science!
06/2025 – Our collaboration with Prof. Iglesias’s group (RIT) is accepted for publication in Wear!
03/2025 – Our work on the quantitative evaluation of the carbon hybridization state by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) is accepted in Physical Review Materials!
03/2025 – Our collaboration with Prof. Tehrani’s group is accepted for publication in the Composites Part B: Engineering!
01/2025 – Our work on Pickering emulsion-templated encapsulated ionic liquids used as lubricant additives is accepted in the Journal of Molecular Liquids!
01/2025 – Our work on the effect of annealing on the tribological response of Zr-based bulk metallic glass is accepted in APL Materials!
Projects
10/2024 – Many thanks to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) for supporting our collaborative work with Prof. Chih-Hao Chang’s group through a Early Stage Innovations (ESI) Grant!
08/2024 – Many thanks to the American Chemical Society (ACS) Petroleum Research Fund (PRF) for supporting our work through a New Directions (ND) Grant!
06/2024 – Many thanks to the UT Austin-Portugal program for supporting our work through a Exploratory Research Projects (ERPs) grant!
07/2023 – Filippo secured a Collaborative NSF Grant! Looking forward to working with Prof. Iglesias!
06/2023 – Many thanks to the Welch Foundation for supporting our work through a Research Grant!