Career Exploration: Using Ingenuity and Innovation to Create “Memory Metals”

Home / Articles / External / Government

periodic table of elements metals
Image source: Canva

July 15, 2025 | Originally published by National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) on June 17, 2025

Othmane Benafan is a NASA engineer whose work is literally reshaping how we use aerospace materials — he creates metals that can shape shift. Benafan, a materials research engineer at NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, creates metals called shape memory alloys that are custom-made to solve some of the most pressing challenges of space exploration and aviation.

“A shape memory alloy starts off just like any other metal, except it has this wonderful property:  it can remember shapes,” Benafan says. “You can bend it, you can deform it out of shape, and once you heat it, it returns to its shape.”

An alloy is a metal that’s created by combining two or more metallic elements. Shape memory alloys are functional metals. Unlike structural metals, which are fixed metal shapes used for construction or holding heavy objects, functional metals are valued for unique properties that enable them to carry out specific actions.

Focus Areas