We'll have openings for new PhD students starting in the Fall of 2024, in the areas of high-temperature ceramic composites and environmental barrier coatings. For details contact zok@ucsb.edu 

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.