NON-TECHNICAL SUMMARY Many technologies, including sensors, electronics, and energy systems, depend on the ability to control how material behavior is affected with changes in temperature and pressure. This project, supported by the Solid State and Materials Chemistry Program in the Division of Materials Research, enables Prof. Koski and her research group at the University of California Davis to grow new layered materials, use chemistry strategies to add and remove atoms inside of these new materials (a process called “intercalation”), and to explore how to tailor these unique materials to control the behavior at high pressure and low and high temperatures. New methods for chemical intercalation are developed that will transform our abilities to manipulate thermodynamics on a molecular level. These investigations address an outstanding need of using chemistry to control 2D layered materials to access new phases and functional behavior. A method called “Brillouin spectroscopy” can study the mechanical behavior of tiny volumes of material without damaging them; the researchers use this to precisely measure new phase changes and extract physical information about the materials. This project is uniquely situated to achieve the goal of controlling thermodynamics in a 2D layered material using intercalation strategies, establishing systematic patterns for rational design of materials with desired properties. Additionally, undergraduate students receive training for careers in sci