A Welcome Message

Dear Friends of Metallurgical and Materials Engineering,

It has been a great fall at Mines, with MME celebrating many successes of our students and faculty. Most notably, Professor John Speer was awarded the Bessemer Medal for outstanding research in steel metallurgy and Assistant Professor Geoff Brennecka was made a Fellow of the American Ceramics Society, an honor hardly ever awarded to such a young researcher. Our undergraduate students were recognized as the best Materials Advantage Chapter at the Materials Science and Technology meeting this fall. They continue to find jobs at a high rate and go on to very successful careers.

Mines continues to strengthen its materials research with the addition of new facilities for materials characterization. We have installed a new PANalytical x-ray diffraction instrument that will allow state-of-the-art lab-scale characterization of the materials we produce. An atmospheric pressure x-ray photoelectron spectrometer will be delivered shortly, enabling studies of reactions of gases with materials, and within the next year we expect an advanced secondary ion mass spectrometry instrument. All of these complement the existing facilities, including a Talos transmission electron microscope and Cameca atom probe.  In all, we are building one of the best and most up-to-date analytical facilities in the region that will support Mines, national and local industry and other universities.

MME has some departmental changes under discussion as well. Geoff Brennecka and Corinne Packard proposed undergraduate curriculum revisions that will expand materials courses into the sophomore year, allowing more flexibility for study abroad, internships, and other such enrichment opportunities, as well as better accommodating students who are off-schedule.  We are also considering increasing coordination between the Materials Science graduate program and the Metallurgical and Materials Engineering Department and its graduate programs, without negatively impacting the very successful degree programs we currently have in place. When we look around campus, the scale and scope of the materials research and teaching efforts is extensive. It is really exciting to be at the forefront of it.

Please be in touch with us if you have a comment, a suggestion, or are visiting the area.  We are always happy to see you.

Angus Rockett
Department Head
January 2018