Chet Inman Award 2005

The ASM Worcester Chapter held its annual awards night on Wednesday, April 20, 2005 at O'Connors Restaurant, 1160 W. Boylston St., Worcester. The award this year went to Olga Karabelchtchikova, our Graduate Student from Russia.

Olga Karabelchtchikova is a PhD student at the department of Materials Science, WPI. She received her undergraduate degree in Physical Metallurgy from Lipetsk State Technical University (Russia) in 2002, where she was working on modeling the borating processes of medium-alloyed steels and analysis of the borated layer characteristics.

Upon completion, she was a research assistant at Texas Tech University (2003-2004) working on her Master's Degree. Her thesis is a combination of several areas. It includes non-destructive materials characterization and modeling multipass grinding effect on the residual stress distribution and surface integrity of high-carbon high-chromium steels. Besides gaining knowledge in experimental designs and simulation techniques, she has published the work in JMEP and TMS conference proceedings.

Olga joined WPI in Fall 2004 as a Stoddard Fellow. Currently she is working on modeling and optimizing gas carburizing processes of steels with concentrations on the process parameters evaluations including mass transfer coefficient and carbon diffusion mechanisms in steels. This research will benefit the process optimization by reducing the carburizing time and variations in case depth and surface hardness.

Highlights of the Evening

Prof. Sisson presenting award to Olly
Olly receiving award	Students and Prof. Sisson having dinner

Guest Speaker

Prof. Richard D. Sisson, Jr., FASM and Trustee, agreed to stand in for the scheduled guest speaker, Dr. Donald R. Muzyka, FASM, Past ASM President and International Trustee, due to unexpected illness. Dr. Sisson's topic for the evening was Green Manufacturing.

Green Manufacturing can be described as a methodology or philosophy that addresses the environmental effects and/or energy consumption of a product and manufacturing process during the initial stages of product design, materials selection and manufacturing process design rather than at the end of the manufacturing process. In this presentation we will attempt to 'green engineer' several products and manufacturing processes.

Richard D. Sisson, Jr. is Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) and the Materials Science and Engineering Program Head. He received his B.S. in Metallurgical Engineering from Virginia Polytechnic Institute, an M.S. and Ph.D. in Metallurgical Engineering from Purdue University. After graduating from Purdue he joined DuPont's Savannah River Laboratory as a Research Metallurgist. He joined WPI in 1976 as the Morgan Distinguished Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering. He progressed through the academic ranks and is currently Professor of Mechanical Engineering at WPI. Dr. Sisson has also worked at Virginia Polytechnic Institute as an Assistant Professor of Materials Science and Engineering and at Exxon Chemical as a Consulting Engineer.

Dr.Sisson's teaching and research has focused on the applications of thermodynamics and kinetics to materials processing and degradation phenomena in metals and ceramics. He has more than 120 publications and more than 120 technical presentations on topics ranging from heat treating to synthesis of nanocrystalline ceramics to EB-PVD coating deposition kinetics and microstructure to hydrogen embrittlement of high strength steels. Dr. Sisson became a Fellow of ASM International in 1987 and a Trustee in 2002.

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Last modified: Nov 02, 2005, 13:09 EST