Posted: October 18, 2019
Harmer discusses the Nano/Human Interface Research Initiative in the VR lab at Lehigh.
Each year, the Materials Science & Technology conference attracts scientists, engineers, students, suppliers, and business leaders to foster technical innovation. Dr. Martin Harmer and his team were among the attendees of this year’s MS&T19 conference. Harmer is Lehigh’s Alcoa Foundation Professor of Material Science and Engineering, Senior Faculty Advisor for Research Initiatives, and a faculty member within the Institute for Cyber Physical Infrastructure & Energy (I-CPIE).
Continuing Lehigh’s tradition of winning top honors at MS&T conferences, Harmer’s team earned first prize in the Ceramographic Competition. The winning poster, entitled Stars and Stripes, was prepared by Lehigh graduate student Josh Smeltzer and co-authored by Harmer, Lehigh postdoctoral researcher Christopher Marvel ’12 ’16 Ph.D., and a team from the U.S. Army Research Laboratory (ARL).
For the past three years, Harmer’s group has collaborated with ARL at Aberdeen Proving Ground via cooperative agreements on the grain boundary science of nanostructured metals and armor ceramics. Marvel is Co-Principal Investigator with Harmer on the project, as well as co-advisor to Smeltzer. Dr. Kris Darling, ARL principal scientist on the Stars and Stripes poster, is a Lehigh-appointed Distinguished Research Fellow in the P.C. Rossin College of Engineering and Applied Science.
Harmer’s team also brought home a best paper award for Review of Grain Boundary Complexion Engineering: Know your boundaries, which was published in the February 2019 issue of the Journal of the American Ceramic Society. Co-authors on the paper included Harmer and Marvel, as well as postdoctoral researcher Amanda Krause and Dr. Jeffrey Rickman, Professor of Materials Science and Engineering. The Lehigh researchers also collaborated with Dr. Patrick Cantwell from the Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology and Charles Compson from Almatis, Inc., an alumina manufacturer.
Lehigh’s successes at MS&T19 are indicative of the strong, enriching partnerships faculty and students share with outside organizations. The conference was also an opportunity to showcase the research efforts that are fostering collaboration between Lehigh and ARL. The week before MS&T19, President Simon visited ARL to discuss the Lehigh Presidential Nano/Human Interface Research Initiative, which proposes to develop a human-machine interface that will improve the ability of scientists to visualize and interpret data. This initiative is a key component to the growing relationship between ARL and Lehigh.
