Johns Hopkins Materials Science undergraduate Andrew Kim recently returned from The Minerals, Metals & Materials Society (TMS) 2026 conference in San Diego with two major awards in hand.
Kim, a senior in Professor Tim Weihs’ lab, was one of two students in the world who received the annual Acta Biomaterialia Undergraduate Scholarship. The $5,000 award is funded by the highly reputable biomaterials journal of the same name and recognizes students who “have demonstrated exceptional motivation, experience, and excellence in materials science.”
“Looking back, it’s just nice to reminisce that I spent the first year or two just getting basic skills,” Kim says of his academic career at Johns Hopkins, adding that he is very grateful for the mentorship of Prof. Tim Weihs and Materials Science PhD candidate Sreenivas Raguraman. “I wasn’t running my own project. I was just helping out, collecting data. But now I’ve started my own project just about a year ago.”
Kim’s other award was for that project, which involves magnesium-calcium alloys. Kim presented his research during a poster session and took first place in the Light Materials Division (LMD). Kim is hoping to publish a paper on these findings in late 2026.
Kim also offered a word of encouragement for undergraduates considering lab work: “Research isn’t for everyone, but I still think it’s worth a shot.”