Several prestigious invited presenters will deliver lectures during the TMS Specialty Congress 2024. Don’t miss these presentations and learn more from these influential leaders in their fields.
Charles Ward
Retired, Air Force Research Laboratory
Editor-in-Chief, Integrating Materials and Manufacturing Innovation
Charles Ward’s professional career has spanned over 35 years, serving in several roles in research, engineering, and management. His research has focused on the microstructure-property relationships in titanium and titanium aluminide alloys. He has served as manager for the Department of the Air Force's basic research program in metals and then as an engineer on the F-35’s propulsion program. He also served as staff officer to the Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition, and then Air Force liaison for materials research and development in Europe. Previously, he served as the Director of the Materials and Manufacturing Directorate, Lead for Integrated Computational Materials Science and Engineering, and Chief of the Metals, Ceramics, and Nondestructive Evaluation Division. He has also served as co-chair of the Materials Genome Initiative Subcommittee under the National Science and Technology Council. Ward received his Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University, is a Fellow of ASM International, and Editor-in-Chief of the Integrating Materials and Manufacturing Innovation journal.
Chris Eberl
Deputy Institute Director, Fraunhofer Institute
Chair and Full Professor, Micro and Materials Mechanics Department, University of Freiburg
Chris Eberl completed his studies in materials science at the University of Stuttgart in 2001 and his Ph.D. in 2004 at the MPI for Metal Research with Eduard Arzt and Oliver Kraft. Until 2007, Eberl worked with Kevin Hemker at Johns-Hopkins University on nc-metals, thermal barrier coatings, and experimental mechanics. In 2007, he was awarded an independent junior research group grant on Microreliability at KIT, Karlsruhe and, in 2012, a ‘Fraunhofer Attract’ group at the Fraunhofer IWM.
Since 2014 he has chaired the Micro and Materials Mechanics Department as a full professor of the University of Freiburg and is the deputy institute director at Fraunhofer IWM. Eberl has been the scientific coordinator of the Fraunhofer Cluster of Excellence Programmable Materials since 2018. He has also been a board-member of the livMatS Cluster of Excellence at the University of Freiburg since 2019. In 2019, he became a board-member of the Plattform MaterialDigital and, in 2021, he became a spokesperson of the NFDI-MatWerk.
Ian Foster
Director, Data Science and Learning Division, Argonne National Laboratory
Professor of Computer Science, University of Chicago
Ian Foster is the Arthur Holly Compton Distinguished Service Professor of Computer Science at the University of Chicago and a Distinguished Fellow and director of the Data Science and Learning Division at Argonne National Laboratory. He has a BSc degree from the University of Canterbury, New Zealand, and a Ph.D. from Imperial College, United Kingdom, both in computer science. His research is in distributed, parallel, and data-intensive computing technologies, and their applications to scientific problems. He is a fellow of the AAAS, ACM, BCS, and IEEE, and has received the BCS Lovelace Medal; IEEE Babbage, Goode, and Kanai awards; and ACM/IEEE Ken Kennedy award.
Emily Molstad
CEO and Co-Founder, VALIS Insights
Driven by her passion for sustainability and love of material science, Emily Molstad quickly found her home within the metal recycling industry. Molstad built the foundation of her technical expertise during her graduate studies at WPI's Center for Resource Recovery and Recycling (CR3) and through extensive interviews with industry stakeholders. This deep dive into the industry exposed the power of data to enhance recycling operations. Molstad, along with her Co-Founder, went on to found VALIS, a software startup dedicated to delivering the solutions needed to optimize the recycling process and create a circular economy. The VALIS team is committed to bringing Industry 4.0 capabilities that increases the profitability of metal recyclers and maximizes the recovery of material from the past to meet the demands of the future. Molstad centers on leading with compassion and enjoys creating a supportive, collaborative environment that drives success for VALIS teammates, customers, and partners.