Jeffrey Rickman, a professor of materials science and engineering and physics at Lehigh University, has been named a Fellow of the American Ceramic Society (ACerS).
The designation of Fellow recognizes ACerS members who have distinguished themselves through outstanding contributions to the ceramic arts or sciences, broad and productive scholarship in ceramic science and technology, conspicuous achievement in ceramic industry, or by outstanding service to the society.
Rickman, a highly regarded computational materials theorist, will be honored during the ACerS Annual Meeting held at the Materials Science and Technology Conference, October 17-21, in Columbus, Ohio.
The society’s 2021 Class of Fellows comprises 17 members who “are among the most experienced and knowledgeable in our profession,” says Dana Goski, ACerS president. “They have dedicated their careers to moving ceramic and glass science and technology forward.”
Founded in 1898, ACerS “is the leading professional membership organization for ceramic and materials scientists, engineers, researchers, manufacturers, plant personnel, educators, and students,” according to the society, which has 10,000-plus members across more than 70 countries.
Rickman’s research interests span multiple disciplines. He applies materials informatics to analyze big-data problems in materials science, such as the characterization of abnormal grain growth in ceramic oxides and the prediction of the plastic response of high-entropy alloys. He is also interested in the description of kinetics and pattern formation associated with phase transitions, the modeling of dislocation dynamics and its impact of plastic behavior, and the quantification of the thermodynamic and kinetic properties of internal interfaces.
His work has been supported by grants from the National Science Foundation, the Office of Naval Research, the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, and the Army Research Office. A member of the Lehigh faculty since 1993, Rickman has received both the Harold Chambers Junior and Class of ’61 professorships.
Rickman is an editor for both Acta Materialia and Scripta Materialia and the author of approximately 150 publications.He has received several honors, including Phi Beta Kappa and Sigma Xi memberships, the NSF’s Young Investigator Award, and Miami University’s Culler Prize. He was elected as a Fellow of ASM International in 2019.
He joined the American Ceramic Society in 1998 and has been active in both the Basic Science and Electronics Divisions. He served as an organizer and program chair for the Electronic and Advanced Materials meetings in 2019 and 2020, and as a member of the Sosman Committee in 2019. He also co-organized materials informatics symposia at MS&T 2020.
Rickman is also a member of Lehigh’s Nano/Human Interface Presidential Engineering Research Initiative, a multidisciplinary research initiative that proposes to develop a human-machine interface to improve the ability of scientists to visualize and interpret the vast amounts of data that are generated by scientific research. He is also affiliated with two of the university’s interdisciplinary research institutes, the Institute for Functional Materials and Devices (I-FMD) and the Institute for Cyber Physical Infrastructure and Energy (I-CPIE).
He holds undergraduate degrees in physics and mathematics from Miami University and an MS and PhD in physics from Carnegie Mellon University. Prior to joining the Lehigh faculty, he held postdoctoral appointments at the University of Michigan and Argonne National Laboratory.
