My research group is centered on the observation that the delicate interplay between microstructural patterns, material instabilities, and material constants can have dramatic effects on a material's physical properties. We seek to understand and predict how this interplay affects material behavior and how these patterns can be designed to create materials with enhanced properties. In today's talk, I will discuss two research directions that highlight our efforts: First, we are investigating the origins of hysteresis in soft magnetic alloys and, in particular, why a specific composition of the permalloy shows the smallest coercivity. Second, we are investigating chemo-mechanical degradation in intercalation materials that are commonly used as electrodes in lithium batteries. Our approach involves designing shape-memory-like microstructures in intercalation materials to mitigate the interfacial stresses accumulating in electrodes and improving material reversibility.