Victoria Christensen published an invited paper in the Journal of the American Ceramic Society as part of the ACerS Rising Stars collection. The paper is entitled "Oxidation of SiC Fibers in Water Vapor". Congratulations Victoria!

Photo: SEM of cross-section through oxidized ZMI fiber, showing a large growth crack in the oxide scale, layers of amorphous and crystalline silica, and bubbles formed during growth.   

Victoria Christensen received a Bright Horizon Global Foundation Materials Department Service Award. The award recognizes students for contributions that help to improve our sense of community and to assist in the educational mission beyond expectations. Victoria's citation reads "for contributions to shared experimental facilities and department service, specifically Ion Mill work and prospective student outreach". Congratulations, Victoria, and thanks for your many contributions to the group and the department!

Photo: Victoria receiving the award from Chair Omar Saleh.

PhD candidates Victoria Christensen, Nicky Han, Maddie McAllister and Scott Berens along with Professors Matt Begley, Carlos Levi and Frank Zok toured Pratt & Whitney's new facility dedicated to development and low-rate production of ceramic composites for aerospace applications. The tour and accompanying discussions proved to be excellent learning opportunities for all students, young and not-so-young. The visit was motivated by ongoing research activities within the Pratt & Whitney Center of Excellence in Composites at UCSB.

Congratulations to Dr. Amanda Ruschel! Amanda recently defended and is on her way into the real world. In the coming days she will be starting a new job at Exponent, a prominent engineering consulting firm.  

Amanda's dissertation focused on design strategies for tailoring compressive properties of cellular structures, targeting concepts that provide combinations of high strength and high straining capacity.

Photo: Amanda, center, celebrating with her friends after her defense.  

PhD candidates Victoria Christensen, Scott Berens, Maddie McAllister, Nicky Han and Steven Rizzie along with Professors Frank Zok, Matt Begley and Carlos Levi toured the P&W Middletown Engine Center as well as the test facilities in East Hartford CT. The tours were part of the P&W-sponsored Center of Excellence in Composites at UCSB.

Materials Ph.D. Student Lauren Poole was recognized with an APS Early Career Speaker Award for her presentation at the 2022 Biennial APS meeting on Shock Compression of Condensed Matter. The meeting was held in Anaheim, CA from July 10 to July 15. Lauren’s talk was entitled “Dynamic mechanical behavior of co-continuous metal composites". Lauren is a PhD student in Professor Frank Zok’s group. Her research was conducted within the Center for Research Excellence on Dynamically Deformed Solids.