The goal of the 2012 Professional Development Workshop in Ceramics is to enhance the career development of the next generation of future leaders in ceramic materials research and education. Four early-career faculty who have recently been awarded NSF CAREER grants from the Ceramics Program in the Division of Materials Research are the focus of the workshop activities. They are being immersed in an intensive two-day technical and professional development workshop with ten to twelve colleagues and peers from the international scientific community with expertise in ceramic materials. The unique exchange and interaction between all participants will impact the early-career faculty's respective fields of research, exchange of best practices for training and teaching students, and the forging of new collaborative or cooperative research opportunities worldwide. Other participants include Assistant Professors and postdoctoral associates with research expertise in ceramics who can benefit from the scientific and professional discussions.
TECHNICAL DETAILS: The 2012 Professional Development Workshop in Ceramics focuses on four technical topics to be presented by each early-career faculty: 1) thermochemistry of nanosintering; 2) processing and properties of perovskite oxide ferroelectrics; 3) mechanical behavior of high temperature materials; and 4) processing - structure - property - performance relation in functional ceramics. The respective early-career faculty and the technical experts in their field of ceramic materials research are leading the technical discussions for the purpose of critically evaluating research plans, career development, and education efforts. In addition, the technical discussions are supplemented by discussion of research opportunities that complement and enhance ongoing teaching and research activities.
Junior researchers interested in this activity should contact the PI directly.
The goal of the 2012 Professional Development Workshop in Ceramics is to enhance the career development of the next generation of future leaders in ceramic materials research and education. Four early-career faculty who have recently been awarded NSF CAREER grants from the Ceramics Program in the Division of Materials Research are the focus of the workshop activities. They are being immersed in an intensive two-day technical and professional development workshop with ten to twelve colleagues and peers from the international scientific community with expertise in ceramic materials. The unique exchange and interaction between all participants will impact the early-career faculty’s respective fields of research, exchange of best practices for training and teaching students, and the forging of new collaborative or cooperative research opportunities worldwide. Other participants include Assistant Professors and postdoctoral associates with research expertise in ceramics who can benefit from the scientific and professional discussions. Intellectual Merit The proposed workshop is designed to enhance the career development of four early-career faculty. Hence, the intellectual merit encompasses the three research areas of the CAREER awardees, which are thermochemistry of nanosintering for Dr. Castro, processing and properties of perovskite oxide ferroelectrics for Dr. Dawber, mechanical behavior of high temperature materials for Dr. Radovic, processing - structure - property - performance relation in functional ceramics for Dr. Meng. Broader Impacts The proposed workshop enhanced the professional development of the CAREER awardees, and to build the ranks of the next generation of educator-researchers with expertise in ceramic materials. In addition, the workshop fostered collegiality among the four CAREER awardees, which has lead to future collaborative research, exchange of best-practices for teaching, networking at technical meetings, etc. Beyond enhancing the professional development of four individual faculty, the workshop served as a model for other NSF program areas whereby it could impact hundreds of faculty each year.
