Bower, Minor, Narayan, Szlufarska, and Ueda to chair 2016 MRS Spring Meeting

Meeting chairs for the 2016 Materials Research Society (MRS) Spring Meeting are Christopher A. Bower (X-Celeprint Limited, Ireland), Andrew M. Minor (University of California–Berkeley, USA), Roger Narayan (The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and North Carolina State University Joint Department of Biomedical Engineering, USA), Izabela Szlufarska (University of Wisconsin–Madison, USA), and Osamu Ueda (Kanazawa Institute of Technology, Japan). The Meeting will be held March 28–April 1, 2016, in Phoenix, Ariz.

Christopher A. Bower is the chief technology officer of X-Celeprint Limited, a company founded to develop and commercialize advanced micro assembly technologies. He received a PhD degree in physics from The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2000, where his graduate studies focused on the synthesis and novel properties of carbon nanotubes.

He was formerly a technical manager at Semprius, Inc., where he led the team responsible for micro-transfer-printing and wafer-level-packaging of advanced microscale solar cells. His past experience includes three years of research and development on three-dimensionally integrated circuits at RTI International and four years of research on nanotechnology and photonics devices at Bell Labs and InPlane Photonics, Inc. Bower’s interests include three-dimensional integration of integrated circuits; heterogeneous integration of compound semiconductors onto non-native substrates; and the fabrication of low-cost, large-format electronics using novel assembly methods.

Andrew M. Minor is an associate professor at the University of California–Berkeley (UC Berkeley) in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering. He holds a joint appointment at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, where he is the acting director of the National Center for Electron Microscopy in the Molecular Foundry. He received a BA degree in economics and mechanical engineering from Yale University and his MS and PhD degrees in materials science and engineering from UC Berkeley.

He has co-authored over 120 publications and given over 80 invited talks on topics such as nanomechanics, lightweight alloy development, characterization of soft materials, and in situ transmission electron microscopy technique development. He was twice awarded the LBL Materials Science Division Outstanding Performance Award (2006 and 2010) and was awarded the Robert Lansing Hardy Award from TMS in 2012.

Roger Narayan is a professor at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and North Carolina State University (NCSU) Joint Department of Biomedical Engineering. He earned a MD degree from Wake Forest University School of Medicine and a PhD degree in materials science and engineering from NCSU.

He is the author of over 150 publications and several book chapters, and has also edited several books. His work has shown that laser-based thin- film growth and additive manufacturing methods may be used to prepare biomaterials with unique structures and added functionalities for antimicrobial, biosensing, drug delivery, and tissue engineering applications. He currently serves as editor-in-chief of Materials Science and Engineering C: Materials for Biological Applications and associate editor of Applied Physics Reviews.

Narayan’s honors include the NCSU Alcoa Foundation Engineering Research Achievement Award, the NCSU Sigma Xi Faculty Research Award, the University of North Carolina Jefferson-Pilot Fellowship in Academic Medicine, the National Science Faculty Early Career Development Award, the Office of Naval Research Young Investigator Award, the Fulbright-Brazil Scientific Mobility Award, and The American Ceramic Society Richard M. Fulrath Award. He has been elected as a Fellow of ASM International, AAAS, and AIMBE.

Izabela Szlufarska is a professor and associate chair in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, with an affiliate appointment in the Department of Engineering Physics, at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. She co-leads the Computational Materials Group and is the founder and leader of the Interdisciplinary Computational Group. She received a PhD degree in physics from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, in 2002 and a MS degree in physics from Wroclaw University of Technology, Poland, in 1999.

Her research is primarily focused in the areas of nanomechanics and materials for nuclear energy applications. Within nanomechanics, her research led to discoveries of new laws of friction in nanoscale contacts and to developments of new theories and models that enable molecular simulations on experimental time scales. In the area of materials for nuclear energy applications, her research is focused on the design of structural materials with superior radiation resistance, including silicon carbide-related technologies.

Szlufarska’s awards include an NSF CAREER Award, Air Force Office of Scientific Research Young Investigator Program Award, and the H.I. Romnes Faculty Fellowship. She was placed on the National Academy of Engineering list of Frontiers of Engineering.

Osamu Ueda is a professor in the Graduate School of Engineering at Kanazawa Institute of Technology, Japan, which he joined in 2005. He is also a professor at the Research Laboratory for Integrated Technological Systems in KIT, Japan. He received a BS degree in 1974 and a PhD degree in 1990, both from the University of Tokyo, Japan.

His research has focused on the evaluation of defects and microstructures in various semiconducting materials and the degradation mechanism of compound semiconductor optical devices such as semiconductor lasers and light-emitting diodes for over 30 years. The key technique of his work is transmission electron microscopy for characterization of defects in semiconductors and degraded optical devices.

Ueda has authored more than 150 scientific papers, including 30 invited papers, three books, and 56 patents. He was a head editor of the Japanese Journal of Applied Physics in 1997–2010, serving as editor-in-chief in 2004–2005. He has chaired and organized a number of international scientific meetings, including several MRS symposia. In the fall of 2013, he served as a meeting chair of the Japan Society of Applied Physics (JSAP)-MRS Joint Symposia held in Kyoto, Japan. □