Yohannes Abate, professor of physics at the University of Georgia, said he has always been interested in physics. âI donât remember a time when I was not intrigued by gravity, for example, or small particles or the stars,â he said. Abate, who has a doctorate in physics, and graduate student Alireza Fali recently played a key role in the groundbreaking development of a new one-step process for creating self-assembled metamaterials, which are materials that are engineered to have properties that do not occur in nature. This discovery could have wide applications in electronics and optical devices, according to an article shared by the UGA Physics Department.