Texas Tech Research

💡 Advancing the Future of Printed Electronics

Dr. Minxiang Zeng received $530,000 for a five-year CAREER Award from from the National Science Foundation (NSF) Division of Civil, Mechanical and Manufacturing Innovation (ENG/CMMI). His research aims to improve electronics through innovating semiconductor connectivity.

Dr. Zeng's project focuses on advancing ink-based manufacturing of semiconductor chalcogenide films for flexible electronics, sensors, and energy devices. Although printing offers scalable, low-cost fabrication, uncontrolled porosity and unclear interfacial interactions often reduce electrical performance and reliability.

This research will develop ink design strategies that guide material assembly during printing, using nanoparticle additives and colloidal components to tune interfacial structure and produce uniform, low-porosity films under mild conditions. The project will also establish structure–property relationships linking printed film morphology to charge transport and mechanical durability.

Texas Tech University - Whitacre College of Engineering
Texas Tech Chemical Engineering

Congratulations to Dr. Lenka Halamkova on presenting her research at Pittcon, one of the world's premier conferences for analytical chemistry and laboratory science.

In her presentation, Dr. Halamkova presented a multi-modal approach to fentanyl detection combining nail analysis with mechanistic protein studies. She demonstrated that ATR-FTIR and Raman spectroscopy with machine learning can detect fentanyl exposure in human nail clippings with 85-96% accuracy, offering a non-invasive forensic tool.

To understand why detection works, she investigated fentanyl's interaction with butyrylcholinesterase as a model protein. Enzyme kinetics revealed mixed inhibition, while Raman spectroscopy with machine learning (92% accuracy) confirmed structural changes in aromatic residues and protein backbone. This demonstrates that fentanyl causes detectable structural changes in susceptible proteins, including the keratin-based changes in nails that enable their detection method.

College of Arts and Sciences, Texas Tech University
TTU Environmental Toxicology

Vice President Joseph Heppert Begins a New Chapter

Our division bids farewell to Dr. Joseph A. Heppert, who retires after nearly ten years of service as Vice President for Research and Innovation at Texas Tech University.

Dr. Heppert arrived shortly after we achieved our Carnegie R1 classification, and he progressed that momentum. Under his leadership, annual research expenditures have increased to $290 million as of 2025. The university's innovation ecosystem expanded, sustaining a thriving community of inventors and entrepreneurs. The opening of the Experimental Sciences Building II added more lab space to accommodate our scientific talent. Dr. Heppert oversaw a tremendous effort in bringing the National Science Foundation (NSF) Engineering Research Center, CASFER: Center for Advancing Sustainable & Distributed Fertilizer Production, to Lubbock. More recently, he was instrumental in supporting the Texas Tech University - Critical Infrastructure Security Institute (CISI), a high-priority interdisciplinary initiative combining energy, cybersecurity, and defense innovation.

Under Dr. Heppert's leadership and dedication, Texas Tech's influence within innovation and science has grown and the university's research community is aiming for a higher standard for ourselves, our community, and our world.