Student News

Every year the Society of Tribologists and Lubrication Engineers (STLE) organize a student poster contest in an attempt to provide the opportunity for students to present their research activities. For the second year in a row, Hamidreza Mohseni was awarded the first place prize amongst 36 national and international students at the STLE 2011 annual meeting in Atlanta, GA. Hamidreza’s award winning poster was titled: Friction Mitigation in Nanocrystalline ZnO via Subsurface-Induced Plastic Shear. This investigation was supervised by Professor Thomas W. Scharf. It involved a collaborative effort of experimental and computational (with the help of Professor Srinivasan Srivilliputhur and graduate student Niraj Gupta) approaches to reveal the fundamental mechanisms responsible for friction reduction and wear minimization in solid lubricant nanocrystalline ZnO.

The UNT chapter of Material Advantage is hosting the 2011 ASM Materials Camp from July 18th to July 20th. The camp hopes to "open the world of materials engineering and nanotechnology to enthusiastic high school students." Download the flyer or apply now!

On Friday, May 13th, six seniors presented during the Spring 2011 MTSE Senior Undergraduate Research Seminars at Discovery Park. To download their presentations, click the student's name below:

UNT students participated and won prize at North Texas Inter-University MSE Symposium

April 13, 2011, a group of UNT students from the Material Science and Engineering department presented
at the 2nd North Texas Inter-University Materials Science and Engineering Symposium at UT Arlington.
The symposium was organized by UT Arlington and sponsored by American Society of Metals (ASM) International. Five graduate students from UNT presented their research at the symposium together with fellow students from UT Dallas, SMU, and the host UT Arlington. Ye Xiang, a PhD student in the MSE program, won the third prize of the symposium. Shailesh Vidhate, Niraj Gupta, Shravan Katakam, and Shivraj Karewar presented at the symposium. Photo shows the five participants, Dr. Du, Dr. Srivilliputhur and several members of the Material Advantage UNT chapter after the symposium.

Department of Materials Science and Engineering and Material Advantage UNT Chapter presented the Awards and Volunteer Recognition Ceremony on February 25, 2011

The Department of Material Science and Engineering & the Materials Advantage UNT Chapter have had an Awards and Volunteer Recognition Ceremony on February 25, 2011. The ceremony was to recognize the outstanding student leadership and volunteer activities including organization of Material Summer Camps, science fair and home coming events, MSE research labs and facilities tours, and connections to local high school students in the past few years. These activities have greatly helped our student recruiting and promoted science and engineering education. Arun Devaraj, who is the current Material Advantage president, was awarded the Outstanding Leadership and Service Award. Antariksh Singh and seven other students were awarded the Outstanding Service and Support Award. Hitesh Vora and nine other students were awarded the Outstanding Volunteer Award. The ceremony also presented Material Advantage Travel Awards to three undergraduate students Ian Mackinnon, Lawrence Kuo and Casey Smith for their attendance and presentation at the Material Science and Technology (MS&T) 2010 conference at Houston TX. Prof. Narendra Dahotre, Chair of MTSE, Prof. Jincheng Du, faculty advisor of MA UNT chapter, and Prof. Tom Scharf, MTSE undergraduate advisor, attended the ceremony.

Pictures courtesy of Angela Nelson.

Hamidreza Mohseni recently attended a topical conference sponsored by the Society of Vacuum Coaters (SVC) in November 2009 in Albuquerque NM.  He presented an oral talk on the outcomes of a research project titled "Improvement in Thermal and Wear Resistance of Carbon/Carbon Composites by Infiltration of ZrO2 with Atomic Layer Deposition."  For his efforts, he was subsequently awarded $5000 scholarship from The Helen and Rolf Illsley fund of the Society of Vacuum Coaters Foundation.  This highly competitive scholarship is granted to two graduate students annually.  Hamidreza has also been invited to attend the 2011 SVC Technical conference to show a poster presentation of his work.

More recently Hamidreza participated in a student poster contest that was held by Society of Tribologists and Lubrication Engineers (STLE) at their 2010 annual meeting in Las Vegas, NV.  Among the national and international 46 student poster entries, he received the highest level Platinum award ($150) for his superior scientific and presentation quality.  An extended abstract of his work will appear in the August issue of STLE’s Tribology and Lubrication Technology (TLT) magazine.

The University of North Texas YouTube Channel recently featured Materials Science and Engineering Senior Jeff Helstad. In the video Helstad talks about his research and mentors in the College of Engineering. Dr. Scharf and Dr. Srivilliputhur also make an appearance. (Watch Video)

Materials Science and Engineering Senior Jeff Helstad was featured in the November 27th issue of the Chronicle of Higher Education. With the science knowledge he has gained at UNT, he will be joining the National Guard in the Middle East next spring. He will be working with other researchers to study the effects of the hot desert sun on guns, armor, and other equipment. Good luck Jeff!

The Boards of Directors/Trustees of ACerS, AIST, ASM International and TMS have approved the chartering of a the new Material Advantage Chapter of University of North Texas. The chapter was founded on a membership fee donation by Dr. Nandika Anne D’Souza. The Material Advantage UNT Chapter currently has about 20 members with Arun Devaraj as the president and Dr. Jincheng Du as faculty adviser.The effort of the chapter has been focused on exploring the fun side of material science, which would educate the members and increase the awareness of material science field for members of the UNT campus and for the community including local high school students. An article about the chapter and the activities is published in the AIST iron steel technology August 2009 edition. A scanned copy of the news article can be found here. For details on the chapter activities and upcoming events refer to the web page www.orgs.unt.edu/MA . If you are interested to explore the fascinating world of material science contact any of the officers of Material advantage chapter and join us in our Fall 2009 general meetings. The chapter has a page in also on Facebook. In the coming semesters we are looking forward to expand and extent our outreach to the high schools in the near by area of UNT.

Materials Science and Engineering Senior Jeff Helstad has been featured on the UNT home page. With the science knowledge he has gained at UNT, he will be joining the National Guard in the Middle East next spring. He will be working with other researchers to study the effects of the hot desert sun on guns, armor, and other equipment. Good luck Jeff! (Read Article)

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