Lane W. Martin is the Director of the Rice Advanced Materials Institute and the Robert A. Welch Professor of Materials Science and NanoEngineering, Chemistry, and Physics and Astronomy at Rice University. He is also a Faculty Senior Scientist in the Materials Sciences Division at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Lane received his B.S. in Materials Science and Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University in 2003 and his M.S. and Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley in 2006 and 2008, respectively. Following his Ph.D., he was a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Quantum Materials Program at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (2008–2009).

Lane began his academic career as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana–Champaign (2009–2014) before returning to UC Berkeley as Associate Professor (2014–2018) and then Professor (2018–2023). At Berkeley, he served as Vice/Associate Chair of the department, later as Chancellor’s Professor and Chair of Materials Science and Engineering, and as both Secretary and elected Chair of the Faculty of the College of Engineering. He joined Rice University in July 2023.

Lane’s research focuses on advancing the synthesis, characterization, and control of emergent functionality in complex oxide materials through epitaxial thin films, strain, defect, and interfacial engineering. He has published over 315 papers, with ~37,000 citations (h-index = 87), and is a multiple-time Highly Cited Researcher. His work has been recognized with numerous honors, including the Richard M. Fulrath Award from the American Ceramic Society (2025), Defense Science Study Group (2022–2024), the Advanced Materials Hall of Fame (2022), IEEE-UFFC Society Ferroelectrics Young Investigator Award (2019), Robert L. Coble Award for Young Scholars (2016), American Association for Crystal Growth Young Author Award (2015), Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (2014), Dean’s Award for Research Excellence at Illinois (2013), National Science Foundation CAREER Award (2012), Army Research Office Young Investigator Award (2010), and others. Lane is a Fellow of the Materials Research Society (2024), the American Ceramics Society (2023), and the American Physical Society (2022) and he is a Senior Member of IEEE. He also serves on the Board of Directors of the Materials Research Society and is a member of the Executive Advisory Board of Advanced Materials (Wiley).