About the author: Sam White is a graduate student in physics, working in the Applied Optical Physics Group of Prof. Richard Haglund. Sam’s graduate work has focused on growing single crystals, thin films, and nanoparticles of the phase-transition material vanadium dioxide (VO2) to enable both fundamental studies and applications in technology. In this work—with support from undergraduates Peyton Brown and Ellis Thompson—he shows how lattice match, chemical reactions, and interfacial energies between VO2 and the growth substrate conspire to affect the size, shape, orientation, and chemical composition of VO2 single crystals. This provides a framework for understanding substrate-VO2 interactions and for engineering VO2 crystals for application. Sam recently successfully defended his dissertation and is now “all-but-dissertation” (ABD). After graduation, he will join the group of Dr. Rachael Myers-Ward at the Naval Research Laboratory as a National Research Council Research Associate.