MRS Press Release

WARRENDALE, PA—The Materials Research Society (MRS) has named  David J. Srolovitz, University of Pennsylvania, to receive its Materials Theory Award for his "decisive and highly influential contributions to the theory and simulation of microstructure, morphological evolution, mechanical behavior, and the structure and dynamics of interfaces." Srolovitz will receive his award at the 2013 MRS Fall Meeting on Wednesday, December 4, at 6:30 p.m. in the Grand Ballroom of the Sheraton Boston Hotel. He will present his talk, Polycrystalline Microstructure At-Scale, on Monday, December 2, as part of the Symposium X Lunchtime Lecture Series. The Materials Theory Award, endowed by Toh-Ming Lu and Gwo-Ching Wang, recognizes exceptional advances made in materials theory to the fundamental understanding of the structure and behavior of materials.

Among Srolovitz's seminal contributions is his work on the topology and kinetics of grain growth in polycrystals. Srolovitz and his collaborators were among the first to use Monte Carlo simulation techniques to track the growth and shrinkage of grains in polycrystalline materials during recrystallization and grain growth. Through these simulations, he was able to provide a microscopic picture of these important processes. In further work in this area, especially using sufficiently large systems to capture the behavior of real polycrystalline metals, he was able to link atomic-scale processes to macroscopically observed microstructural behavior. Srolovitz has also worked in the areas of mechanical properties of high-temperature alloys, thin-film growth, recrystallization, surface phenomena, phase separation, and energy harvesting.

Srolovitz received his B.S. degree in physics from Rutgers University, and his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in materials science from the University of Pennsylvania. After serving as the executive director of the A*STAR Institute of High Performance Computing in Singapore since 2009, he recently joined the faculty at the University of Pennsylvania as the Joseph Bordogna Professor of Engineering and Applied Science in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering and in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics. Prior to this position. he held senior faculty appointments at Yeshiva University, Princeton University and the University of Michigan, along with many distinguished visiting professorships. He is a Fellow of MRS, The Minerals, Metals & Materials Society, the Institute of Physics London, and ASM International. For 30 years he has been at the forefront of theoretical and computational materials science, making contributions to a variety of important materials theory problems.