Recipients of the 2014 Acta Student Awards

A team of judges consisting of Acta Materialia, Scripta Materialia, and Acta Biomaterialia editors has completed the evaluation of nominees for the above awards. Each year we receive many excellent nominations and selecting the winners is a challenging task.  Several factors are considered in the evaluation of each nominee: the quality of paper, or papers, for which he or she was nominated, recommendation letters, and leadership potential.  The awardees selected from papers published in 2014 in the Acta Journals are:

• Dr. Riccardo Casati, Politecnico di Milano & CNR-IENI Lecco, ITALY.  Advisor: Prof. Maurizio Vedani.  “Thermal cycling of stress-induced martensite for high-performance shape memory effect,” Scripta Materialia 80 (2014), 13-16.
• Dr. In-Chul Choi, Hanyang University, Seoul, SOUTH KOREA (now at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Germany).  Advisor: Prof. Jae-il Jang.  “Evolution of plasticity, strain-rate sensitivity and the underlying deformation mechanism in Zn–22% Al during high-pressure torsion,” Scripta Materialia 75 (2014), 102-105.
• Dr. Jun Ding, Johns Hopkins University, USA (now at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory).  Advisor: Prof. Evan Ma.  “Full icosahedra dominate local order in Cu64Zr34 metallic glass and supercooled liquid,” Acta Materialia 69 (2014), 343-354.
• Mr. Denver Faulk, University of Pittsburgh, USA.  Advisor: Prof. Stephen F. Badylak.  “The effect of detergents on the basement membrane complex of a biologic scaffold material,” Acta Biomaterialia 10 (2014), 183-93.
• Mr. Heemin Kang, University of California, San Diego, USA.  Advisor: Prof. Shyni Varghese. “Mineralized gelatin methacrylate based matrices induce osteogenic differentiation of human induced pluripotent stem cells,” Acta Biomaterialia 10 (2014), 4961-70.
• Mr. Philipp Krooß, University of Paderborn, GERMANY (now at Technische Universität Bergakademie Freiberg).  Advisor:  Prof. Dr.-Ing. Hans Jürgen Maier.  Mr. Krooß is receiving dual awards for outstanding work in both Acta Materialia and Scripta Materialia, an unprecedented event in our student award program.  “Cyclic degradation mechanisms in aged FeNiCoAlTa shape memory single crystals,” Acta Materialia 79 (2014), 126-137 “Thermal cycling behavior of an aged FeNiCoAlTa single-crystal shape memory alloy,” Scripta Materialia 81 (2014), 28-31.
• Dr. Brittany R. Muntifering, Boise State University, USA (now at Northwestern University, USA).  Advisor:  Prof. Peter Müllner.  “Intra-variant substructure in Ni–Mn–Ga martensite: Conjugation boundaries,” Acta Materialia 71 (2014), 255-263.
• Dr. Kelsey A. Potter-Baker, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio, USA (now at Cleveland Clinic Foundation).  Advisor: Prof. Jeffrey R. Capadona. “Curcumin-releasing mechanically compliant implants prevent neurodegeneration and blood-brain barrier instability at the implant-tissue interface.” Acta Biomaterialia 10 (2014), 2209-2222.
• Dr. Spencer E. Szczesny, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, USA.  Advisor: Prof. Dawn M. Elliott. “Interfibrillar shear stress is the loading mechanism of collagen fibrils in tendon,” Acta Biomaterialia 10 (2014), 2582-2590.
• Ms. Jana Šmilauerová, Charles University in Prague, CZECH REPUBLIC.  Advisor:  Prof. M. Janecek.  “Ordered array of ω particles in β-Ti matrix studied by small-angle X-ray scattering,” Acta Materialia 81 (2014), 71-82.
• Mr. Dalong Zhang, University of California, Davis, USA.  Advisor:  Prof. Enrique Lavernia.  “Prism stacking faults observed contiguous to a {10-12} twin in a Mg–Y alloy,” Scripta Materialia 76 (2014), 61-64.

The editors would like to congratulate the awardees and thank all the nominees for their participation.  We wish them all the best in their careers.

Subhash Mahajan
Coordinating Editor, Acta Journals