Michele V. Manuel is an American materials scientist whose research topics have included biodegradable materials for medical implants, and high-strength self-healing alloys for aerospace applications. She is the U. S. Steel Dean of the Swanson School of Engineering at the University of Pittsburgh. [1]
Manuel did her undergraduate studies at the University of Florida, in materials science and engineering, and completed a Ph.D. in the same subject at Northwestern University. [2]
After working at NASA and General Motors, she returned to academia and to the University of Florida in 2008, taking a position as an assistant professor. She became chair of the University of Florida's Department of Materials Science and Engineering in 2017, "the first woman and person of color to hold the position". [2] She also became Rolf E. Hummel Professor of Electronic Materials at the University of Florida. In 2024, she moved to the Swanson School of Engineering as U. S. Steel Dean, becoming the first female dean of engineering at the University of Pittsburgh. [3]
Manuel received the Bradley Stoughton Award for Young Teachers of the American Society of Metals in 2013, [2] and the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers in 2016. [4] She was named as a Fellow of the American Society of Metals in 2017. [2] In 2021 she was a recipient of the Brimacombe Medal of The Minerals, Metals & Materials Society "for significant contributions in the integration of systems-based materials design approaches to light metals and her meaningful service to the profession". [5]
In 2022 she was named to the National Academy of Engineering, [2] "for contributions to research, implementation, and teaching of computational materials design of biomimetic self-healing metals and high-performance lightweight alloys". [6]
Sir Peter John Gregson, FREng was a British research engineer and Chair of the Henry Royce Institute. He was previously the Vice-Chancellor of Cranfield University from 2013-2021 and President and Vice-Chancellor of Queen's University Belfast from 2004. Prior to that he was deputy Vice-Chancellor at the University of Southampton from 2000-2004.
John W. Hutchinson is the Abbott and James Lawrence Research Professor of Engineering in the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences at Harvard University. He works in the field of solid mechanics concerned with a broad range of problems in structures and engineering materials.
Brian Cantor has been a long-serving university leader, is a visiting professor in the Department of Materials at the University of Oxford, and a consultant at the Brunel Centre for Advanced Solidification Technology (BCAST) at Brunel University. He was the vice-chancellor of the University of Bradford from 2013 to 2019. Prior to this appointment he was the vice-chancellor at the University of York from 2002 to 2013, and previously he was the head of the Mathematical and Physical Sciences Division at the University of Oxford.
Abdus Suttar Khan was a Bangladeshi scientist. He researched on aerospace for four decades with NASA, United Technology, and Alstom, a French power generation company. Khan invented more than forty different alloys for commercial application in space shuttles, jet engines, train engines and industrial gas turbines.
Subra Suresh is an Indian-born American engineer, materials scientist, and academic leader. He is currently Professor at Large at Brown University and Vannevar Bush Professor of Engineering Emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He was Dean of the School of Engineering at MIT from 2007 to 2010 before being appointed as Director of the National Science Foundation (NSF) by Barack Obama, where he served from 2010 to 2013. He was the president of Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) from 2013 to 2017. Between 2018 and 2022, he was the fourth President of Singapore's Nanyang Technological University (NTU), where he was also the inaugural Distinguished University Professor.
Sir Harshad"Harry"Kumar Dharamshi Hansraj Bhadeshia is an Indian-British metallurgist and Emeritus Tata Steel Professor of Metallurgy at the University of Cambridge. In 2022 he joined Queen Mary University of London as Professor of Metallurgy.
Palle Rama Rao FREng is an Indian scientist noted for his contribution to the field of Physical and Mechanical Metallurgy. He has collaborated and conducted research activities for over dozen universities and associations all over India and abroad. He has been honoured with the titles of Padma Vibhushan in 2011 by president of India for his contributions to scientific community. He is acting as the chairman, Governing Council, International Advanced Research Centre for Powder Metallurgy & New Materials (ARCI), Hyderabad.
Bal Raj Nijhawan, was an Indian metallurgist, author and the first Director of Indian origin of the National Metallurgical Laboratory, Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR). He was a recipient of Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize, the highest Indian science award, which he received in 1964 in the Engineering sciences category. The Government of India honoured him in 1958, with the award of Padma Shri, the fourth highest Indian civilian award for his services to the nation.
Gerbrand Ceder is a Belgian–American scientist who is a professor and the Samsung Distinguished Chair in Nanoscience and Nanotechnology Research at the University of California, Berkeley. He has a joint appointment as a senior faculty scientist in the Materials Sciences Division of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. He is notable for his pioneering research in high-throughput computational materials design, and in the development of novel lithium-ion battery technologies. He is co-founder of the Materials Project, an open-source online database of ab initio calculated material properties, which inspired the Materials Genome Initiative by the Obama administration in 2011. He is also the Founder and was CTO of Pellion Technologies, which aims to commercialize magnesium-ion batteries. In 2017 Gerbrand Ceder was elected a member of the National Academy of Engineering, "For the development of practical computational materials design and its application to the improvement of energy storage technology."
Yue Qi is a Chinese-born American nanotechnologist and physicist who specializes in computational materials scientist at Brown University. She won the 1999 Feynman Prize in Nanotechnology for Theory along with William Goddard and Tahir Cagin for "work in modeling the operation of molecular machine designs."
Julia Randall Weertman was an American materials scientist who taught at Northwestern University as the Walter P. Murphy Professor of Materials Science and Engineering.
Alison Jean Davenport is the Professor of Corrosion Science at the School of Metallurgy and Materials, University of Birmingham.
Rachel Clare Thomson is a professor of Materials Science and Engineering, and Pro Vice Chancellor of Teaching at Loughborough University. She is known for her expertise in measuring and predicting the behaviour of materials for high temperature power generation, as well as the development of higher education and research programmes.
Tresa M. Pollock is ALCOA Distinguished Professor of Materials at the Department of Materials, University of California, Santa Barbara. Pollock is internationally recognised in the development of new materials systems, including alloys, 3D characterisation of structure and properties, and development of integrated computation materials engineering.
Ellen K. Cerreta is a materials scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory, working to provide materials science and technology solutions for national security missions. She is Fellow of ASM International.
Fiona Mary Doyle is an American materials scientist who is Professor of Materials Science and Engineering and the Donald H. McLaughlin Professor Emeritus at University of California, Berkeley. She was elected a member of the National Academy of Engineering in 2016 and a Fellow of The Minerals, Metals & Materials Society in 2021.
Irene Jane Beyerlein is an American materials scientist who is the Mehrabian Interdisciplinary Endowed Chair at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She is a Fellow of the Materials Research Society. Beyerlein was elected a member of the US National Academy of Engineering in 2024 for contributions to methodologies predicting the mechanics of complex engineering materials to improve their stability and strength.
Carol Anne Handwerker is an American materials scientist. She is the Reinhardt Schuhmann, Jr. Professor of Materials Engineering and Environmental and Ecological Engineering at Purdue University. She is a fellow of both The Minerals, Metals & Materials Society and the Materials Research Society.
Mary Grace Burke is an American materials scientist who is an emeritus professor at the University of Manchester. She was awarded the 2020 International Metallographic Society Henry Clifton Sorby Award and was the 2019-2023 President of the Royal Microscopical Society.
Terence G. Langdon is a scientist and an academic. He is a Professor of Materials Science at the University of Southampton, and a Professor of Engineering Emeritus at the University of Southern California.