Academics

Chen receives society’s highest materials science honor

Hamer Professor named a Minerals, Metals and Materials Society Fellow

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Long-Qing Chen, Donald W. Hamer Professor of Materials Science and Engineering, professor of engineering science and mechanics, and professor of mathematics at Penn State, has been named a fellow of The Minerals, Metals and Materials Society (TMS), the society's highest honor.

TMS fellows are recognized as leading authorities and contributors to the practice of metallurgy, materials science, and technology, and have been named for outstanding service to society. Chen has made invaluable contributions to computational mesoscale materials science and its applications to solid-solid phase transformations and microstructure evolution.

“TMS annual meetings are where I learned how to get involved in society committees and symposium organization and met many wonderful lifelong friends, as well as a number of mentors who have, in many ways, shaped my professional career,” said Chen. “To receive the TMS fellow award, considered a pinnacle award at TMS, is truly a dream come true.”

Chen has earned worldwide recognition and acclaim for his leadership in computational materials science. He is credited with pioneering the development of phase-field models to explain grain growth, domain evolution, interactions between defect and phase microstructures, and strain-dominated microstructure evolution in cutting-edge elastically inhomogeneous systems. He has published more than 500 papers and delivered more than 300 invited presentations in the area of computational microstructure evolution and multiscale modeling of metallic alloys, oxides and thin films, and energy materials. His theory and computational group collaborates widely with more than 20 premier experimental groups here at Penn State and worldwide.

Chen’s computational work has attracted strong interest and support from industry, including funded projects in the past from Air Products, Ford, General Motors, Alcoa, Pratt-Whitney, Samsung, Knoll Atomic Power Laboratory, and Intel, and national labs, including Los Alamos, Pacific Northwest, Oak Ridge, Sandia, Lawrence Livermore National Lab, and NETL.

It’s the latest of many accolades for Chen. In 2012, he was named distinguished professor of materials science and engineering in the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences. 

Other awards include: fellow of the Materials Research Society, American Physical Society, American Ceramic Society and ASM International; the Young Investigator Award from the Office of Naval Research; Special Research Creativity Award from the National Science Foundation; Faculty Scholar Medal for Outstanding Achievement (Engineering) at Penn State; Guggenheim Fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation; Materials Science Research Silver Medal from ASM International; Distinguished Scientist/Engineer Award from the Electronic, Magnetic and Photonic Materials Division of TMS; Lee Hsun Lecture Award by the Shenyang Institute for Metals of the Chinese Academy of Sciences; and the Materials Theory Award of the Materials Research Society.

Chen earned a bachelor’s degree from Zhejiang University, China, a master’s degree from the State University of New York at Stony Brook and a doctoral degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, all in materials science and engineering.

Last Updated February 6, 2017

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