In this issue

• 2007-2008 Annual Report Now Available!
• Spanier Receives PECASE
• Doherty Receives ASM Sauveur Award
• Kalidindi Receives NSF Grant
• Marcolongo Chosen for Biomedical Journal Editorial Board
• Barsoum and Finkel Receive $300K ARO Award
• Spanier and Colleagues Receive Instrumentation Grant
• Two Recent Ph.D. Graduates Appointed to Faculty Positions
• Jessica Schiffman Wins MatPAC Award
• Marko Knezevic Receives Nicolitch Scholarship

MSE 2006-2007 Annual Report now online!

Read the complete recap of Drexel’s Department of Materials Science and Engineering from the past year.

Spanier Receives Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers

MSE Professor Jonathan E. Spanier was honored at a White House ceremony with President Bush on Thursday, November 1 as one of 58 researchers to receive a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE). The PECASE is the nation’s highest honor for professionals at the outset of their independent research careers. Spanier is the first assistant professor at Drexel to be selected for this recognition since the inception of the program in 1996 under President Clinton.

Nominated by the Department of Defense, Spanier is cited for "innovative research in materials science and engineering to improve synthesis strategies to produce novel and advanced hybrid nanostructures with specific properties and multifunctional capabilities," Spanier is also cited "for his exceptional teaching of graduate and undergraduate students from diverse backgrounds."

In addition to his faculty appointment, Spanier serves as the Associate Department Head of MSE, and is an affiliated faculty member in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering.

Spanier received a B.A. from Drew University in 1990 and a Ph.D. with Distinction from Columbia University in 2001. Prior to joining the College of Engineering in 2003, Spanier held a postdoctoral position at Harvard University.

Doherty Receives
2008 ASM Sauveur Award

Dr. Roger Doherty, A.W. Grosvenor Professor in Materials Science and Engineering, is the recipient of the ASM International 2008 Albert Sauveur Achievement Award. Established in 1934, the award recognizes pioneering materials science and engineering achievements that have stimulated organized work along similar lines to such an extent that a marked basic advance has been made in the knowledge of materials science and engineering.

Dr. Doherty is being honored specifically for his expertise in metallurgy. He has also been invited to give a lecture that will review the past changes, draw attention to some of the many scientific challenges that remain and speculate on what the future might yield for metallurgy.

Kalidindi Receives NSF Grant

Dr. Surya Kalidindi, Professor of Materials Science and Engineering (MSE), is the recipient of a National Science Foundation (NSF) grant titled "AHSS: Development of novel finite element simulation tools that implement crystal plasticity constitutive theories using an efficient spectral framework." Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Brigham Young University Dr. David Fullwood will be the Co-PI on the grant, which totals $430,000 over a four year period.

The goal of this project is to develop spectral crystal plasticity based finite element tools for simulating deformation processing operations and mechanical performance of Advanced High Strength Steels (AHSS). These new tools will provide significantly better predictions of microstructure evolution and anisotropic mechanical response of steels while keeping the computational times involved comparable to the tools currently used by the industry that are generally based on a phenomenological description of plasticity.

Marcolongo Chosen for
Biomedical Journal Editorial Board

Dr. Michele Marcolongo, Associate Professor of Materials Science and Engineering and Associate Vice Provost for Research, has been invited to serve on the editorial board for the Journal of Biomedical Materials Research, Part A.

The Journal of Biomedical Materials Research publishes peer-reviewed articles on all relevant biomaterial topics including the science and technology of alloys, polymers, ceramics, and reprocessed animal and human tissues in surgery, dentistry, artificial organs, and other medical devices. The Journal also publishes articles in interdisciplinary areas such as tissue engineering and controlled release technology where biomaterials play a significant role in the performance of the medical device.

The Journal of Biomedical Materials Research is the official journal of the Society For Biomaterials (USA), and other international organizations.

Barsoum and Finkel Receive
$300K ARO Award

Drs. Michel Barsoum (Distinguished Professor of MSE; PI), and Peter Finkel (Director of the Microfabrication Facility; DNI), have received a grant from the Army Research Office (ARO) entitled, "Kinking Nonlinear Elastic Solids for Load Bearing, Damping & Strain Sensing Applications." The budget for this three-year grant is $300K.

The goal of this project is the development of solids with extraordinary combinations of damping, stiffness, yield points and machinability for use at ambient and elevated temperatures as both structural components and strain sensors, in particular, based on kinking nonlinear elasticity (KNE). By monitoring the stress related ultrasound propagation in KNE, the health of a structural component (made with a KNE solid - or if a KNE solid is affixed to a structural component) can be easily predicted as a function of time. This self-stress monitoring capability can be useful over extended temperature regimes and/or corrosive environments.

Spanier and Colleagues Receive Major Research Instrumentation Grant

Dr. Jonathan E. Spanier, Assistant Professor of Materials Science & Engineering (PI) received a $498,073 award from the NSF Division of Materials Research under the Major Research Instrumentation (MRI) program entitled "MRI: Acquisition of Systems for the Integration of Raman Scattering, Luminescence and Scanning Electron Microscopies." Drs. Caroline L. Schauer (MSE), Yury Gogotsi (MSE), Zhorro Nikolov (CoE), and Elisabeth S. Papazoglou (BIOMED) are Co-PIs on this award. The award will support the acquisition of a metrology and nano-fabrication system that will integrate scanning electron imaging and focused-ion beam processing with local optical excitation, emission, and scattering spectroscopies within a single experimental platform.

Two Recent Ph.D. Graduates
are Appointed to Faculty Positions

Dr. Gwénaëlle Proust (right, advisor: Surya Kalidindi) and Dr. Davide Mattia (below, advisor: Yury Gogotsi), two alumni of MSE, have both received Lecturer positions to start in January 2008.

Proust has been appointed Lecturer in the School of Civil Engineering at the University of Sydney in Sydney, Australia. Mattia has been appointed Lecturer in the Department of Chemical Engineering at the University of Bath working on mass transport at the nanoscale.

At Drexel, Proust worked with Professor Surya Kalidindi and the Mechanics of Microstructures Group on identifying the complete space of feasible anisotropic properties in polycrystalline microstructures. Since graduating in 2005, Proust has been working as a post-doctoral researcher at Los Alamos National Laboratory.

Mattia worked under the mentorship of Professor Yury Gogotsi and the Nano Materials Group on the synthesis and characterization of carbon nanotubes for nanofluidic applications. Mattia graduated in 2007.

Jessica Schiffman Selected
as a 2007 MatPAC Graduate Student
Award Winner

Ph.D. student Jessica Schiffman (advisor: Caroline Schauer) is one of four Pennsylvania graduate students chosen as a 2007 MatPAC Graduate Student Award Winner.

All winners will present their research in a one-hour seminar and will receive a $500 honorarium and a certificate of recognition.

MatPAC stands for "Materials Pennsylvania Coalition" and is a group of six universities (Carnegie Mellon, Drexel, Lehigh, Penn State, University of Pennsylvania, University of Pittsburgh) across Pennsylvania who share research, facilities, and courses.

Marko Knezevic Receives
Nicolitch Scholarship from
Studenica Foundation

Ph.D. candidate Marko Knezevic (advisor: Surya Kalidindi) has received the $5,000 Dragomir Nicolitch Charitable Trust Scholarship from the Studenica Foundation to support him in the 2007-2008 academic year.

The Dragomir Nicolitch Scholarship Fund was established in part to provide basic support to students of Serbian background from any of the states that made up the former Yugoslav nation for graduate study at an institution of higher learning in the United States of America.

Previous Drexel recipients of the award include former Ph.D. students Svetlana Dimovski (advisor: Yury Gogotsi) and Milan Ivosevic (advisors: Richard Knight and Richard Cairncross) and current Ph.D. student Dejan Stojakovic (advisor: Surya Kalidindi).