VIRGINIA POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTE AND STATE UNIVERSITY - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Member of the Advisory Board
- Research Technologist for W.L. Gore
- Research Technologist, W.L. Gore and Associates
Education:
BS, Materials Science and Engineering, Virginia Tech (2022)
Job Titles:
- Member of the Advisory Board
- Materials Engineer, the Boeing Company
Research Interests:
High Entropy and Compositionally Complex Ceramics
Bulk and Thin Film Synthesis
Multi Length-Scale Materials Characterization
Functional Materials for Extreme Environments
Education:
B.S., Physics, Indiana University of Pennsylvania, 2009
M.S., Physics, Indiana University of Pennsylvania, 2012
Ph.D., Materials Science and Engineering, North Carolina State University, 2016
Job Titles:
- Assistant Professor of Practice Director, Engineering Communications Program
Job Titles:
- Member of the Advisory Board
- Retired
Job Titles:
- Member of the Advisory Board
- Manager at Newport News Shipbuilding, Retired
Job Titles:
- Member of the Advisory Board
Edmund Moore has been employed with the United States Air Force as a civilian engineer and program manager since the early 1990's.
Experience
20+ years experience as DoD civilian assigned to base: Affordability Group Lead; AF tech expert in materials, processing, systems support & HBCU/MI advocacy areas; Experienced program manager in basic R&D & systems support; AF expert in tech program organization & minority employee recruitment; Experienced briefer to General Officer & SES levels of AF and DoD; Dynamic facilitator in organizing teams within & across organizations.
Employment History
(2012-Present) Senior Plans & Program Engineer, Engine Systems Branch, WPAFB, OH - Affordability Group Lead, RQT Diversity Council Deputy Chair & RQ HBCU/MI program manager; (2010-2012) Senior Plans & Program Engineer, Engine Integration & Assessment Branch, WPAFB, OH - Affordability Group Lead; (2007-2010) Plans & Program Engineer, Air Systems Branch, WPAFB, OH - Senior aeronautics sector plans engineer, FLTC 8 & sustainment support, Agile Combat Support focal point, AFRL Diversity Task Force Council, & AFMC HBCU/MI Program Manager; (2002-2006) Senior Materials Engineer, Acquisition Systems Support Branch, WPAFB, OH - Managed critical Quick Reaction contract to resolve AF mission critical material issues, Managed high visibility HBCU/MI Initiative which was briefed to SECAF, Corona Board & AFRL Manpower & Personnel Subcommittee; (2000-2002) Program Manager, Plans Branch, WPAFB, OH - Managed basic R&D portfolio, visiting scientist contract & assisted Chief Scientist, Managed & grew HBCU/MI program inside & across AFRL & AFMC; (1997-2000) Materials Engineer, Processing Section, WPAFB, OH - Defined technical areas of R&D, managed technical programs & publicized results; (1991-1996) Materials Engineer, Ceramics Branch, WPAFB, OH - Performed basic & applied R&D in ceramic composite arena to support warfighter, managed corporate programs, & executed innovative contractual programs.
Education:
MS, Materials Science and Engineering, Hohai University (2019)
BS, Materials Engineering, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (2015)
Job Titles:
- Member of the Advisory Board
- Professor
- Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at North Carolina State University / Associate Department Head, North Carolina State University
Elizabeth Dickey is a professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at North Carolina State University, where she directs the Center for Dielectrics and Piezoelectrics, an National Science Foundation University/Industry Cooperative Research Center with 26 international members. Her research focuses on developing processing-structure-property relationships for materials, in which the macroscopic physical properties are governed by point defects, grain boundaries, or internal interfaces.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Advisory Board
- Fellow of the American Ceramic Society
- Senior Advisory Scientist, Savannah River Technology Center
George Wicks has been involved for more than 25 years in many areas of materials science, including vitrification and management of high-level radioactive wastes (development, processing, testing and assessing of waste glass forms), development of sol-gel composites, and nuclear disarmament activities. He has worked extensively in many areas of glass science and studied the properties and structure of glasses for a variety of applications at both Harvard and MIT, where he received advanced degrees.
Wicks developed the first slurry feeding system for vitrification of the 34 million gallons of high-level waste. He is also co-developer of the SRS Kinetic Leachability Model, describing leaching behavior of the complex 40-component SRS waste glass system. He is also co-inventor of Sol-Gel Indicators, a new class of composite materials that can be fabricated into special sensors and integrated into important fiber optic, analytical monitoring devices for environmental measurements and medical applications.
Wicks is co-inventor of Sol-Gel Metal Hydrides, composites which can store a large amount of hydrogen. He is co- inventor of a new hybrid microwave rechnology that can remediate hazardous components and reclaim reusable metals. He has more than 150 publications and 11 patents, has co-authored four books, written six chapters in texts and encyclopedias, and served as co-chairman for seven international workshops and symposia on nuclear waste management in France, Belgium, Germany and the United States.
Wicks served as chairman of the Nuclear Division of the American Ceramic Society and president of the National Institute of Ceramic Engineers. He has also served on the U.S. Materials Review Board and was an adjunct professor at Clemson University and University of Florida. He is currently chairman of the SRS Creativity Committee, chairs the Senior Professionals IRD Proposals Evaluation Panel, and chairman of the SRTC Mentoring Committee.
Wicks has served on the DuPont Corporate Ceramics Board and testified on technical aspects of waste management for various committees, including those of the National Academy of Sciences. He also currently serves on two International Scientific Advisory Boards involving radioactive waste management activities in France (CEA) and also the European Communities (EC).
Wicks is a Fellow of the American Ceramic Society and has received three George Westinghouse Signature Awards for technical excellence, including the Gold Corporate Award and the Westinghouse Innovators Award.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Advisory Board
- President and Co - Owner of DM
- President and Co - Owner, DM & M Engineering, Inc.
Jerry Davis is President and Co-owner of DM&ME. He has over 40 years of experience in both engineering and business. He started his career in mechanical engineering in the U.S. Air Force, Ingersoll-Rand Co., and what was then Allied Chemical Corp. (now Honeywell). In these assignments, he worked as an aerospace test engineer, turbomachinery project engineer, and chemical process plant project and reliability engineer.
Davis has a master of science degree in applied materials, with an experimental thesis on corrosion. His recent background includes work as a corrosion researcher, materials engineer, engineering program manager and principal engineer for Battelle Memorial Institute; DNV, Inc.; Henkels & McCoy, Inc., and, since 2004, with DM&ME.
He has always combined diverse engineering and organizational experience with practical, scientific engineering expertise. He has 12 years of experience serving as an expert witness.
Job Titles:
- Collegiate Assistant Professor
Job Titles:
- Member of the Advisory Board
- Division Director for the Materials Science
Jeremy Busby is the Division Director for the Materials Science and Technology Division in the Physical Sciences Directorate at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. His contributions range from light water reactors to sodium reactors and space reactor systems, as well as research in support of the ITER project.
Busby's research is focused on materials performance and development of materials for nuclear reactor applications. While at Oak Ridge, Busby has participated in materials research efforts for space reactors, fusion machines, advanced fast reactors, and light water reactors. Ultimately, the results of this diverse research will enable the development of operating criteria for structural materials in a variety of adverse environments that will allow for design and operation of safe, reliable, and cost-effective nuclear systems.
Currently, Busby leads the Materials Aging and Degradation Pathway for the U.S Department of Energy's Office of Nuclear Energy Light Water Reactor Sustainability Research and Development program. He also leads the Nuclear Energy Enabling Technologies Materials Cross-Cut effort, in addition to participation in several nuclear industry-sponsored research tasks. As principal investigator for the DOE Office of Science ITER Program, he led an investigation into the feasibility of using innovative cast austenitic stainless steel for the first wall structure of the international ITER project. The Oak Ridge team used advanced computational thermodynamics modeling to successfully devise a cast SS within the internationally-approved chemical composition limits for the ITER stainless steel with a tensile strength comparable to wrought stainless steel (>50% improvement in strength over the cast stainless steel previously developed by industry), without compromising other properties.
In 2010, Busby received the Presidential Early Career Award for Science and Engineering, following this effort for "excellence in research leading to the development of high performance cast stainless steels, a critical part of the U.S. Contributions to ITER project, and for his mentoring of students both as an Adjunct Assistant Professor at the University of Michigan and at ORNL."
In 2011, he was honored with a Secretary of Energy Achievement Award for contributions to DOE's response to Fukushima. The American Nuclear Society presented Busby with the Landis Young Member Achievement award in 2006, and in 2007, he received the ORNL Early Career Award for Engineering Accomplishment for his leadership in the cast stainless steel effort.
He is an adjunct assistant professor of Nuclear Engineering and Radiological Sciences at the University of Michigan and has developed and taught his own graduate-level course in materials degradation and performance for fission and fusion reactors. He also is heavily involved in the leadership of many professional societies.
Busby received his bachelor of science degree in nuclear engineering from Kansas State University, and his master of science and Ph.D. degrees in nuclear engineering from University of Michigan.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Advisory Board
- Senior Systems Engineer, GE Power
Job Titles:
- Undergraduate Research Assistant
Education:
BS, Materials Science and Engineering, Virginia Tech (expected May 2024)
Job Titles:
- Undergraduate Program Coordinator
Job Titles:
- Member of the Advisory Board
Job Titles:
- Member of the Advisory Board
- Managing Partner for Safety Step
- President of Dominion Metallurgical
- President, Dominion Metallurgical, Inc.
Job Titles:
- Dandu, Graduate Research Assistant
Job Titles:
- Associate Professor / Associate Department Head
Job Titles:
- Associate Professor of Practice Director, Green Engineering Program
Job Titles:
- Member of the Advisory Board
- CEO, Virginia Semiconductor
Job Titles:
- Collegiate Associate Professor / Laboratory Manager
Job Titles:
- Member of the Advisory Board
- Fellow of the American Chemical Society Division of Polymer Chemistry
Travis Baughman received his Ph.D. in Organic and Polymer Chemistry from the University of Florida and has a bachelor of science in Textile, Fiber, and Polymer Chemistry from Clemson University. He served as a post-doctoral fellow in the Netherlands at the Technical University of Eindhoven, working with E.W. "Bert" Meijer. Throughout his education and post-doc, Travis worked on many research projects including liquid crystalline amine-epoxy networks, fully-organic photonic crystal hydrogels, designer polyolefins via olefin metathesis polymerizations, regioregular polyolefin ionomers, and modular supramolecular hydrogels for biomedical applications. These experiences resulted in numerous peer-reviewed publications and patents across a wide range of technologies.
Upon entering industry with Royal DSM, a Dutch company, he worked on various materials projects as chemist and engineer in the corporate labs, as well as product and application development roles focused on ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene and various engineering plastics from elastomeric polyesters to high temperature nylons. He ended his service as global research manager focusing on change management and application development portfolio management.
More recently, he has focused on independent consulting dealing with materials development projects and research management functions, while also plugging in to various nonprofit groups working on the global plastic waste dilemma and ocean cleanup.
As of September 2021, he joined Blue Biofuels as director of polymer development focusing on green energy from cellulosic materials.
Travis is a Fellow of the American Chemical Society Division of Polymer Chemistry (ACS POLY) and recently received the Distinguished Service Award from the division for efforts as Chairman of the Industrial Advisory Board.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Advisory Board
- Quality Engineer at Newport News Shipbuilding, Retired
- Representative for Howmet Aerospace
Job Titles:
- Associate Professor
- Associate Professor, MSE, Virginia Tech