Rondinelli and May Win ACerS 2014 Ross Coffin Purdy Award

James RondinelliDrexel Materials assistant professors James Rondinelli and Steven May, along with colleague John Freeland from Argonne National Laboratory, are the recipients of the 2014 American Ceramic Society’s (ACerS) Ross Coffin Purdy Award.

This is the second year in a row that a group from Drexel’s Department of Materials Science and Engineering has received this award.  A. W. Grosvenor Professor Michel W. Barsoum, Distinguished University and Trustee Chair Professor Yury Gogotsi,  Ph.D. recent Ph.D. graduate Michael Naguib (advisor: Michel Barsoum), Ph.D. candidate Olha Mashtalir (advisor: Yury Gogotsi), B.S. student Joshua Carle, former research professor Volker Presser, and Dr. Jun Lu and Professor Lars Hultman from Linköping University received the award last year for their article “Two-Dimensional Transition Metal Carbides” published in ACS Nano.

This award is given to the author(s) "judged to have made the most Steve Mayvaluable contribution to ceramic technical literature during the calendar year two years prior to the selection." The ACeRs Board unanimously approved the award subcommittee’s selection of Rondinelli, May, and Freeland for their article “Control of octahedral connectivity in perovskite oxide heterostructures: An emerging route to multifunctional materials discovery” published in MRS Bulletin, vol. 37, 261-270 (2012). The article describes how the atomic structure of complex oxide films can differ from their bulk counterparts, providing a new means to engineer functional properties in these materials.

Recognition of this achievement will be given on Monday, October 13, 2014 during the Materials Science and Technology (MS&T) conference taking place in Pittsburgh, PA.