Transforming the Modern Foundry

Director's Welcome

The MCP paves a path toward a future of autonomous science, realizing the goals of the Materials Genome Initiative through integrated processing, characterization, and data science. Incorporating advancements in artificial intelligence, machine learning, heterogenous computing, and networking data-transfer and storage capabilities, the MCP boasts an interdisciplinary user center that propels the JHU campus into the future of characterization and processing.

State of the art electron microscopy, spectroscopy, X-Ray and scattering tools are co-located with processing platforms ranging from biological and metallic 3D printing to high throughput combinatorial thin film sputtering capabilities. Tying these approaches together is a dedicated data storage and AI/ML infrastructure, with including edge and near edge computing to meet large and fast volumes of data at the speed of discovery. Development of novel AI-enabled toolsets sets the MCP apart from its peers, and provides a platform for users to experience autonomous experimentation in a user environment.

These tools build upon and expand capabilities across the JHU community, from the biological and cryo TEM capabilities in the Beckman Center at the School of Medicine to the advanced light microscopy capabilities at the Integrated Imaging Center. The MCP will foster implicit and explicit connections between both these and future capabilities, helping to lead efforts in materials research and education at JHU and beyond.

– Mitra Taheri

Landmark Facility

The Stieff Silver Building consists of two connected buildings, at 800 Wyman Parkway, just west of campus at the edges of Druid Hill and Wyman parks. The MCP @ Stieff opened in Spring 2022. The building is listed in the National Register of Historic Places. The original building was constructed in April 1924 as a state-of-the-art silversmith for the Stieff Silver Company. The 1924 building added a second floor in 1929. The second building, attached to the west side, was added in 1971 as the company expanded to produce pewter.

Stieff Silver was known for quality and value of their silver products, beautiful hand chasing & Repoussé work. Their most famous pattern was Maryland Rose (Stieff Rose) introduced in 1892. Also of note were patterns commissioned for Colonial Williamsburg and the Smithsonian Institution. In 1967, Stieff bought the Schofield Company who made silver flatware and the Woodlawn Vase replica — the trophy of the Preakness Derby.
In the 1970s and 80s, pewter became Stieff’s most important product. During that time, Stieff merged with S. Kirk & Son and was renamed Kirk-Stieff and all silver and pewter production was consolidated to the Wyman building.

In 1990, Kirk-Stieff was sold to Lenox, a division of Brown-Forman Corp. and continued to produce silver hollow ware and pewter till 1999. The building was purchased by Struever Bros. Eccles & Rouse. It was rented by the Whiting School of Engineering of Johns Hopkins University for lab space and used as office space for the Space Telescope Science Institute and others.

The whole building was purchased by WSE in the fall of 2017 as the location for the MCP, labs for the Departments of Mechanical Engineering, Materials Science and Engineering, Environmental Health Sciences, and other centers. Renovations for the MCP began in September 2020.