Materials Processing Fundamentals

Lifeng Zhang currently is a professor and the dean of the School of Metallurgical and Ecological Engineering at University of Science and Technology Beijing. Lifeng received his Ph.D. degree from University of Science and Technology Beijing in 1998 and has 15 years teaching and research work at different universities - University of Science and Technology Beijing, Missouri University of Science and Technology, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Technical University of Clausthal and Tohoku University. Lifeng has compound backgrounds in primary production, refining, casting, and recycling of metals; recycling of electronic wastes and solar grade silicon; and process modeling for metallurgical processes. Lifeng has published over 250 papers and gave over 170 presentations at meetings and conferences. He is a Key Reader (Member of Board of Review) for four journals and a reviewer for over 30 journals. Lifeng is a member of TMS, AIST and ISIJ. He has received several best paper awards from TMS and AIST.

Antoine Allanore is Assistant Professor of Metallurgy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Cambridge, Massachusetts), in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering where he currently holds the Thomas B. King Chair. He earned a chemical engineering degree from the Ecole Nationale Superieure des Industries Chimiques de Nancy and a M.Sc. and Ph.D. in chemical engineering from the Institut National Polytechnique de Lorraine. Prior joining MIT, he worked as a research engineer at ArcelorMittal R&D on the development of new electrolytic processes for primary steel production. Dr. Allanore was a TMS Extraction and Processing Division Young Leader Professional Development Award winner in 2011 and co-recipient of the Vittorio de Nora Prize awarded at TMS 2012.

Cong Wang is Senior Research Engineer of Saint-Gobain Innovative Materials R&D. Prior to joining Saint-Gobain, he worked at the Alcoa Technical Center. He obtained his Ph.D. from the Carnegie Mellon University; M.S. from the Institute of Metal Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences; and B.S. from Northeastern University with distinctions, respectively. His specialties are in materials processing, micro-structure characterization, mechanical testing, and electrochemistry.

James A. Yurko is a Principal Technologist with Materion Brush Beryllium and Composites (Elmore, Ohio), the global leader in beryllium and non-beryllium based metal matrix composites. Dr. Yurko's primary technical focus is in the area of bulk metallic glass processing. Prior to joining Materion, he cofounded Electrolytic Research Corporation (ERC) LLC with Prof. Don Sadoway of MIT to commercialize molten oxide electrolysis (MOE) technology. Before working with ERC, Jim was the R&D team leader and staff metallurgist of BuhlerPrince, Inc. where he was responsible for commercializing the Semi-Solid Rheocasting (SSR) process and various die casting development projects of aluminum, magnesium, and bulk-metallic glass alloys.
Dr. Yurko received a Ph.D. in metallurgy from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a B.S.E. in materials science and engineering from the University of Michigan. He is currently a member of TMS and ASM and serves on the University of Michigan Materials Science and Engineering External Advisory Board. In 2010, Dr. Yurko was selected as the TMS EPD Young Leader Professional Development Award winner and was a co-recipient of the Vittorio de Nora Prize awarded at TMS 2012.

Justin Crapps attended Mississippi State University, studying Mechanical Engineering. As an undergraduate, Justin was very involved in leadership and extracurricular activities with several organizations including the student chapter of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME), Engineering Student Council, and Bulldog Toastmasters. Justin also participated in the Cooperative education and professional internship programs, spending three semesters working at Georgia Pacific Paper in Monticello, MS and three summers working at Eaton Aerospace in Jackson, Mississippi. In 2005, Justin was awarded the prestigious ASME Charles T. Main silver medal for leadership and service to his student section over a period of more than one year. After in the Ph.D. program at Mississippi State University. During graduate school, Justin's research focused on using finite element modeling for process simulation and developing a combined roughness and plasticity induced closure modified strip-yield model to simulate fatigue crack growth. After graduate school, Justin accepted a postdoctoral appointment at Los Alamos National Laboratory where he is working on projects focused on manufacturing process development for bonding cladding to nuclear fuel, reprocessing fuel through a casting process, multiphysics models for nuclear fuel performance, and development of testing methodologies and specimens for nuclear fuel-cladding bond strength measurement.