Stephen K. Streiffer (Argonne National Laboratory)
Stephen Streiffer has been active in the Materials Research Society for approximately twenty years. His efforts for the society have included organizing four symposia for MRS Spring and Fall Meetings, acting as a tutorial instructor, and serving as a member of the Public Outreach Committee. He was deeply involved as a member of the MRS subcommittee that produced the Strange Matter museum exhibition, and as a member of the subcommittee that advised NOVA on creation of the four-episode series Making Stuff. He also served as a 2010 MRS Bulletin Volume Organizer.
Streiffer is currently Deputy Associate Laboratory Director for the Physical Sciences and Engineering Directorate (PSE) at Argonne National Laboratory. The mission of Argonne’s PSE Directorate is to create and engineer new materials and chemistries that address the grand challenges in energy and the environment, to perform discovery science across a broad spectrum of disciplines including nuclear and high-energy physics, and to advance enabling tools from accelerator physics to nanotechnology. This directorate consists of Argonne’s Materials Science, Chemical Sciences and Engineering, High Energy Physics, and Physics divisions, and the Center for Nanoscale Materials. As a member of Argonne’s senior leadership team, Streiffer represents PSE in Argonne’s strategic planning and execution processes on issues including scientific direction, budget and finance, and business and operations. He also has senior management responsibility as deputy for the US $150M/yr., 850-person PSE directorate.
Streiffer holds a PhD in materials science and engineering from Stanford University (1993) and a bachelor’s degree in materials science and engineering from Rice University (1987). Following his graduate work, he was awarded an Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung Fellowship for postdoctoral research, and under this fellowship worked with Prof. Manfred Rühle at the Max-Planck-Institut für Metallforschung in Stuttgart, Germany from 1993 to 1994. He has been at Argonne National Laboratory since 1998 and prior to his current position has served as a principal investigator in the Materials Science Division, as interim director of the Center for Nanoscale Materials, and as Deputy Associate Laboratory Director for Energy Sciences and Engineering, the predecessor directorate to PSE.
In addition to his active participation in MRS, Streiffer is a member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers and a Fellow of the American Physical Society. Besides his role as a 2010 MRS Bulletin Volume Organizer, he was an associate editor of the IEEE Transactions on Ultrasonics, Ferroelectrics, and Frequency Control from 2004 to 2007, and an Associate Editor for the Japanese Journal of Applied Physics, from 2002 to 2006. He was the recipient in 2006 of the IEEE Ultrasonics, Ferroelectrics, and Frequency Control Society Ferroelectrics Young Investigator Award, and of the 2010 Ikeda Award, an award given annually by the Japanese ferroelectrics research community for outstanding contributions to the study ferroelectric materials and applications. He has served on numerous DOE review, workshop, and advisory panels.
Streiffer’s scientific expertise is in nanostructured oxides and nitrides and in structural characterization of materials. Overarching themes in his personal research have included the development of novel concepts for integration of oxide heterostructures, establishing a fundamental understanding of polar interfaces, and exploring how these interfaces may be manipulated to influence electronic and chemical function. Active research projects focus on utilizing in-situ synchrotron x-ray methods to probe chemical vapor deposition of complex oxides as well as phase transformations and nanoscale size effects in ferroic thin films. Other projects include in-situ synchrotron x-ray studies of the synthesis of InGaN heterostructures, as part of an effort to expand the basic understanding of materials for energy-efficient solid state lighting. He has authored or co-authored more than 160 peer-reviewed publications, book chapters, and conference proceedings.
Candidate’s Statement
“The international scientific and technology endeavor is at a critical and exciting juncture, and it is clear that breakthrough materials discoveries and innovation are essential to addressing our global grand challenges – and that the pace of these discoveries and innovations must increase. To achieve this requires a foundation of professional network, content, and collaborative resources, and the Materials Research Society must continue to lead as the society that provides its membership with these resources. Furthermore, as has been so successfully demonstrated by materials science and engineering, solutions to the challenges facing the world demand an interdisciplinary approach that not only transcends boundaries between traditional fields of inquiry, but overcomes geographical barriers as well. These approaches are founding principles of MRS, and are clearly articulated in its mission, vision, and core values. With this perspective in mind, we must also continue to be a society that sits at the confluence of traditional academic, government and national laboratory, and industrial research activities that combine to deliver the spectrum of discovery and use-inspired science, technology, and tools, through to development and deployment of applications that matter.
As a member of the MRS Board of Directors, I would like to help the society, its officers, and its headquarters staff maintain and expand the vision that enables MRS to achieve the objectives above. This includes enhancing the success of the signature annual fall and spring meetings by strategic positioning of these meetings and working with meeting chairs to coordinate content within individual meetings and across the full portfolio of annual and topical meetings; solidifying the advances made by the society in its publication and information strategies and partnerships so that MRS is the knowledge gateway of choice for the materials research field; developing high-impact strategies for making the Materials Research Society the go-to thought leader for policy makers and the public on matters concerning materials and their impact on global society; and fostering diversity in our membership and activities in a manner that truly represents the international nature of our discipline and that promotes and capitalizes on the best that our members have to offer.
Our society depends on its volunteers to achieve its objectives, and I look forward to the opportunity to contribute my service to advance the cause of the MRS membership.”
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