The Division of Natural Sciences (DNS) and Division of Engineering and Applied Sciences (DE&AS) accepted three materials scientists who have made distinguished original contributions to the knowledge and scholarship as new Fellows of the Academy.
Materials Science is an interdisciplinary subject, spanning the physics and chemistry of matter, engineering applications, and industrial manufacturing processes. Materials scientists study the relationships between the structure and properties of a material and how it is made. They also develop new materials and devise advanced processes for manufacturing them. Materials Science is vital for developments in nanotechnology, quantum computing, energy storage, and nuclear energy, as well as medical technologies such as bone replacement materials and drug delivery.
The Academy especially recognizes the contributions made by materials scientists which correspond to one of our missions in supporting interdisciplinary studies and bridging the gap between scientific theory and engineering applications.
Ray Baughman
Professor Ray Baughman is a chemist and materials scientist, currently holding the Robert A. Welch Distinguished Chair in Chemistry and Professor in Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of Texas, Dallas. He is also the Director of the Alan G. MacDiarmid NanoTech Institute at the University. He earned his B.S. in physics from Carnegie Mellon University and his Ph.D. in Materials Science from Harvard University.
(Image from https://profiles.utdallas.edu)
Ray Baughman has made a significant contribution to the field of Nanotechnology, especially for pioneering novel applications of conjugated polymers and related nanomaterials. According to Herbert Gleiter (FCAcad), "Professor Baughman has made seminal accomplishments in the field of fiber-related sciences as well as many other fields. These accomplishments in fiber-related sciences include the fabrication, characterization, and application of (1) polymer fibers and yarns as twisted torsional artificial muscles and coiled tensile artificial muscles (2) carbon nanotube (CNT) yarns as artificial muscles (3) mechanical energy harvester CNT yarns (named twistors by Ray since the harvesters use twist transfer); and (4) twisted, coiled, and plied polymer yarns and fibers and shape-memory metal fibers for novel refrigerators 10 (named twist fridges by Ray). His artificial muscles can generate up to 98 times the maximum output mechanical power of the same weight human muscle and his mechanical energy harvesters can provide a higher peak electrical power per weight than any prior-art material-based mechanical energy harvesters for stretch frequencies between a few Hz and 600 Hz. A team he led demonstrated an energy conversion efficiency of up to 22.4% for the twistor energy harvesters. A full-cycle intrinsic material efficiency of 0.67 was obtained for his twist fridge, 10 of which exceeds the efficiency of conventional refrigerators."
In 2005, Discover magazine ranked Baughman's carbon nanotube yarns and carbon nanotube sheets as the eighth-most important scientific discovery of the year. Ray Baughman was duly elected a Member of the US National Academy of Engineering, a Member of the Academy of Medicine, Engineering and Science of Texas, a Fellow of the (US) National Academy of Inventors, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry, a Member of Academia Europaea, and a Fellow of the American Physical Society.
Fellow's Profile Page: https://www.coreacad.org/Member.aspx?ProId=113
Philip Withers
Professor Philip Withers is the Regius Professor of Materials in the School of Materials, University of Manchester, and Chief Scientist of the Henry Royce Institute, UK's national institute for advanced materials research and innovation. Philip Withers obtained his Ph.D. in Metallurgy at Cambridge University and took up a lectureship there, before taking up a Chair at the University of Manchester in 1998.
(Image from https://www.manchester.ac.uk)
His research focuses on applying advanced techniques to follow the behavior of materials in real-time and 3D often performing under demanding environments. To this end, he exploits electron, lab, and synchrotron X-ray and neutron beams to illuminate materials behavior. In 2008 he set up the Henry Moseley X-ray Imaging Facility, a world-leading suite of X-ray imaging systems, which in 2020 became a founding part of the National Research Facility in Lab. CT. Awarded the Royal Society Armourers & Brasiers’ Company Prize for pioneering use of neutron and X-ray beams to map stresses and image components in 2010, his work underpins the scientific basis by which we can predict component failure. In 2012, Philip became the inaugural Director of the BP International Centre for Advanced Materials aimed at understanding and developing materials across the energy sector. In 2014, the University of Manchester was awarded the Queen’s Anniversary Prize, recognizing the Manchester X-ray Imaging Facility’s work. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 2016. In 2017 he became the inaugural Regius Professor of Materials and Chief Scientist of the newly founded Henry Royce Institute for Advanced Materials. In establishing correlative tomography, he is currently linking together X-ray and electron imaging to locate and track a 3D region of interest from meter to the nanometres length scale.
Professor Withers is a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering (FREng), a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS), a Fellow of the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining (FIMMM), and a Foreign Member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering
Fellow's Profile Page: https://www.coreacad.org/Member.aspx?ProId=97
Artem R. Oganov
Artem R. Oganov is a theoretical crystallographer, mineralogist, chemist, physicist, and materials scientist. He is currently a Professor at the Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology and a Head of the Laboratory of Crystal Chemistry at the Institute of Geochemistry and Analytical Chemistry of the Russian Academy of Sciences. He obtained his Ph.D. in Crystallography at University College London (UK) and was formerly a professor at the Department of Geosciences & Institute for Advanced Computational Sciences, at Stony Brook University (US). He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry, and a Member of Academia Europaea.
(Image from https://faculty.skoltech.ru)
Professor Oganov's most important works are in the fields of computational materials discovery, in particular the effects of pressure on chemical bonding, and the state of matter at extreme conditions. He has developed novel and highly efficient methods of crystal structure prediction that became the basis of the USPEX code which is used by more than 10000 researchers worldwide. Among the highlights are the discovery of the structure of a superhard phase of boron, gamma-B, transparent phase of sodium, new carbon allotrope, prediction of MgSiO3 post-perovskite and its stability in the Earth's mantle, prediction of other planet-forming minerals, prediction and synthesis of "forbidden" compounds (e.g., Na3Cl), the discovery of helium chemistry under pressure, and creation of borophene - a 2D-monolayer of boron atoms, with great promises for future technologies. Oganov has proposed new scales of electronegativities and chemical hardnesses of the chemical elements, extended to high pressures. Oganov and colleagues were able to explain many unusual phenomena of high-pressure chemistry, as well as predict new phenomena and compounds. Prediction of the new high-pressure hydrous compound Mg2SiO5H2 has inspired a new hypothesis on the origin of the Earth's hydrosphere. Oganov and colleagues have predicted and studied (theoretically and experimentally) many novel superconductors, which are among the highest-temperature superconductors known to date: ThH10 and ThH9, YH6, (La, Y)H6 and (La, Y)H10. Computational methods developed by Oganov open up the way to the discovery of materials with desired properties, thus laying the foundation of computational materials discovery – a new booming field of science.
"I am delighted to have been elected as a Fellow of the International Core Academy of Sciences and Humanities. This is a recognition of not only my own works but also of the whole field of crystal structure prediction that my works helped to advance to a new level, making it an essential tool for predicting new materials with unique properties. In recent years I have extended this to variable-composition systems, surfaces, nanoparticles and molecules, and proteins. An important direction of my research deals with explanations of chemistry at normal and extreme conditions. This includes new scales of electronegativity and chemical hardness (also extended to high pressures)." We are also glad to share that Professor Oganov is one of the youngest academics who was elected a (full) fellow of the Academy.
Fellow's Profile Page: https://www.coreacad.org/Member.aspx?ProId=126