Recipients of the 2019 Acta Student Awards

A team of judges consisting of Acta Materialia, Scripta Materialia, Acta Biomaterialia and Materialia 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 2019 in the Acta Journals are:

-Mr. Kongtao Chen, University of Pennsylvania, USA.  Advisor:  Prof. David J. Srolovitz.  “Grain boundary shear coupling is not a grain boundary property,” Acta Materialia 167 (2019) 241-247.

-Dr. Martina Cihova, ETH Zurich, SWITZERLAND.  Advisor: Prof. Jörg F. Löffler. “The role of zinc in the biocorrosion behavior of resorbable Mg–Zn–Ca alloys,” Acta Biomaterialia 100 (2019) 398-414.

-Mr. Daniel Gaertner, University of Münster, GERMANY.  Advisor:  Dr. Sergiy V. Divinski.  “Concentration-dependent atomic mobilities in FCC CoCrFeMnNi high-entropy alloys,” Acta Materialia 166 (2019) 357-370.

-Dr. Kelsea M. Hubka, Rice University, USA (currently at Stanford University). Advisor: Prof. Mary C. Farach-Carson. “Perlecan domain I gradients establish stable biomimetic heparin binding growth factor gradients for cell migration in hydrogels,” Acta Biomaterialia 97 (2019) 385-398.

-Mr. Ogbogu Kalu, University of New Brunswick, CANADA.  Advisor: Prof. Gobinda C. Saha.  “A novel approach to the sol-gel synthesis of titanium dioxide-coated SBA-16 type silica mesoporous microspheres for water purification,” Materialia 5 (2019), 100237.

-Dr. Punit Kumar, Nanyang Technological University, SINGAPORE.  Advisor:  Prof. Upadrasta Ramamurty.  "Microstructural optimization through heat treatment for enhancing the fracture toughness and fatigue crack growth resistance of selective laser melted Ti-6Al-4V alloy," Acta Materialia 169 (2019) 45-59.

-Dr. Jialin Liu, Michigan State University, USA.  Advisor:  Prof. Yue Qi.  “Atomistic simulation of the formation and fracture of oxide bifilms in cast aluminum,” Acta Materialia 164 (2019) 673 – 682.

-Mr. Tarini Prasad Mishra, Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH, GERMANY.  Advisor of PhD-thesis: Dr. Martin Bram, External mentor: Prof. Rishi Raj.  “On the role of Debye temperature in the onset of flash in three oxides,” Scripta Materialia 170 (2019) 81-84.

-Dr. Andrei Pissarenko, University of California San Diego, USA. Advisor: Professor Marc A. Meyers. “Tensile behavior and structural characterization of pig dermis,” Acta Biomaterialia 86 (2019) 77-95.

-Mr. Tijmen Vermeij, Eindhoven University of Technology, THE NETHERLANDS. Advisor:  Dr. Johan Hoefnagels.  “Demonstrating the potential of accurate absolute cross-grain stress and orientation correlation using electron backscatter diffraction,” Scripta Materialia 162 (2019) 266-271.

-Dr. Jingjing Wu, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, CHINA. Advisors: Prof. Ying Wan and Prof. Aldo R. Boccaccini. “Thermally triggered injectable chitosan/silk fibroin/bioactive glass nanoparticle hydrogels for in-situ bone formation in rat calvarial bone defects,” Acta Biomaterialia 91 (2019) 60-71.

-Dr. Sheng Xu, Tohoku University, JAPAN.  Advisor: Prof. Ryosuke Kainuma.  “Large [001] single crystals via abnormal grain growth from columnar polycrystal,” Materialia 6 (2019), 100336.

-Ms. Wenhui Yang, Kyushu University, JAPAN.  Advisor:  Prof. Syo Matsumura.  “Atom locations in a Ni doped η-(Cu, Ni)₆Sn₅ intermetallic compound,” Scripta Materialia 158 (2019) 1-5.

The editors would like to congratulate the awardees and thank all the nominees for their participation.  We look forward to continuing to work with and support these excellent young researchers as their careers unfold.

Christopher A. Schuh

Coordinating Editor, Acta Journals