People

 Principal Investigator

Bio:
Julie M. Schoenung has worked extensively in the area of novel materials processing, testing and characterization. She is currently a Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at the University of California, Irvine. She received her Ph.D. and M.S. in materials engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and a B.S. in ceramic engineering from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Dr. Schoenung was recently selected to be the recipient of the 2018 ASM International Edward DeMille Campbell Memorial Lectureship, the inaugural Innovation in Research Award (2017) from Materials Science & Engineering-A, and the 2016 Holloman Award for Materials & Society from Acta Materialia, Inc.. She is an Editor-in-Chief for the Journal of Sustainable Metallurgy and has served for many years as a Key Reader for Metallurgical and Materials Transactions A (2003-present). She is also a Fellow of the American Ceramic Society, Alpha Sigma Mu Honor Society and ASM International. Dr. Schoenung’s research activities seek to provide fundamental insight into structure-processing-property mechanistic relationships in a variety of material systems. Innovative synthesis and consolidation processes are combined to fabricate novel materials that exhibit unique behavior. Her current research focus is on high entropy ceramics and additive manufacturing of ceramics, cermets, composites and metals. Key research discoveries include: development and implementation of nanoscratch testing, particularly of alumina and alumina/graphene composites; in-situ mechanical deformation during TEM to characterize ceramic/metal interfaces in nanostructured composites; mechanisms controlling spark plasma sintering of ceramics; synthesis of silicon nitride nanowires from cryomilled silicon powder; investigation of lead (Pb) in ceramics and electronics, and identification of safer alternatives; economic analysis of advanced ceramic component fabrication. Dr. Schoenung’s work has also been complemented by several awards and distinctions such as Fellow, American Ceramic Society – 2018; Edward DeMille Campbell Memorial Lectureship, ASM International – 2018; Excellence in Research, Henry Samueli School of Engineering, UC Irvine – 2017; Innovation in Research Award (Inaugural Recipient), Materials Science and Engineering A (MSEA) – 2017; Fellow, Alpha Sigma Mu – 2016; Hollomon Award for Materials & Society, Acta Materialia, Inc. – 2016; Fellow, ASM International – 2012. Dr. Schoenung also serves as the Editor-in-Chief for the Journal of Sustainable Metallurgy.

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Research Scientists

Bio:

Dr. Baolong Zheng received his Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering in 2006 from UC Davis. During his Ph.D studies he worked under Professor E. J. Lavernia, advising on synthesis and behavior of metallic glass via gas atomization and laser engineering net shaping (LENS).

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Postdoctoral Researchers

Bio:
Dr. Alexander Dupuy received his B.S in Mechanical Engineering from the University of California Riverside in 2009. His undergraduate research involved investigating gradient induced inhomogeneity found in the Spark Plasma Sintering (SPS) process. He continued on to receive his M.S in Mechanical Engineering from UCR where he studied pressure induced densification mechanisms in nanomaterials processed using SPS. In 2016 he received his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from UCR. His doctoral work focused on the processing and measurement of optical and ferroelectric ceramics.

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Bio:
Xin received her B.E. from Xi’an Jiaotong University, Shaanxi, China in 2011 and her M.S. from Shanghai Jiaotong University, Shanghai, China in 2014.

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Graduate Students

Bio:
Haoyang was born in Hunan, China. He earned his B.S. degree in Functional Materials at Huazhong University of Science & Technology during 2011-2015. He is currently a Ph.D. student in Materials Science at University of California, Irvine, where he has been since 2015.

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Bio:
In 2014, Parnian earned her undergraduate degree in Materials Science and Engineering at Iran University of Science and Technology in Tehran. She worked on meso porous carbon and carbon nano tubes for her undergraduate thesis. She started her graduate studies at UCI in 2015 and she has been working with Professor Schoenung since then.

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Bio:
Katherine Acord received her B.S. degree in Materials Science and Engineering from the University of California, Davis. During this time she conducted undergraduate research investigating the mechanical properties of 316L stainless steel parts produced using the metal additive manufacturing technique, Laser Engineered Net Shaping (LENS). This work elucidated the spatially varying hardness that results from the complex thermal history produced by LENS® processing. Katherine spent her summers interning at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, where she was exposed to mechanical design and CAD modeling, electrochemical testing, and materials development. The work from two of these summers resulted in publications in IEEE Xplore.

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Bio:
Sen received his B.S in Chemical Engineering at UC Santa Barbara in 2015. He is currently a Ph.D. student in Materials Science and Engineering at UC Irvine under the supervision of Prof. Julie Schoenung.

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Bio:
Sasha graduated with a B. Eng. in Manufacturing from Bauman Moscow State Technical University in 2013 and with an M.S. in Materials Science from Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology (Skoltech) in 2015. Her previous research focused on applications of carbon nanomaterials in optoelectronics, specifically on carbon-based stretchable and flexible transparent electrodes.

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Bio:

Arturo received his B.S. in Electrical Engineering at University of Sonora, Mexico in 2015, during this time he’s got involved with electronic materials and characterization techniques. Arturo’s research was focused in semiconductor materials where he had the chance to explore the field by analyzing its properties. This work was focused on changing the carrier concentration of a semiconductor material from p-type to n-type by doping with different concentrations of copper and performing an annealing process with different temperatures in different environments.

Arturo also received his M.S. in Nanotechnology at University of Sonora, Mexico in 2018, where based on his previous experience he went ahead and started doing Nano-fabrication of thin film transistors (TFT’s) where different kind of materials as insulators and semiconductors would play the most important role in the behavior of the devices. His research was focused on doing an in-situ doping of a semiconductor material using the pulsed laser deposition technique, where the materials and routine were developed for targeted properties and then used and analyzed its performance.

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Undergraduate Students

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Group Alumni

Doctoral Students

Bio
Jichun (Jimmy) Ye earned his Ph.D. in Materials Science from UC Davis in 2005 under the mentorship of Dr. Julie Schoenung. He earned his doctorate with his dissertation, titled: B4C Reinforced Nanocrystalline Aluminum Composites: Synthesis, Mechanical Behavior and Cost Analysis. His current research interests include High Efficiency Si-based Solar cell, Crystalline Silicon Thin-Film Solar Cell, Dopant-free Carrier Selective Solar Cells, Si/Perovskite Dual-junction Solar Cells, III-V LED and Laser Diode, and the Development of Instrument and Equipment, Materials Genome

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Bio
Hai-Yong Kang earned his Ph.D. in Materials Science with Dr. Julie Schoenung at UC Davis in 2005, successfully defending a dissertation named Management of End-Of-Life Electronic Products within Environmental Benign Manufacturing Framework: Analysis of Infrastructure, Cost, Materials Flow, and Decision-Making.

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Bio
Xiaoying Zhou earned her Ph.D. in Materials Science under the guidance of Dr. Schoenung from UC Davis in 2007 with her dissertation Life Cycle Thinking and Assessment Tools on Environmentally-Benign Electronics: Convergent Optimization of Materials Use, End-Of-Life Strategy and Environmental Policies.

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Bio
Yuhong Xiong earned her Ph.D. in Materials Science with Dr. Julie Schoenung at UC Davis in 2009. Her dissertation was entitled Investigation of the Laser Engineered Net Shaping Process for Nanostructured Cermets.

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Bio
Rustin Vogt earned a Ph.D. in Materials Science with Dr. Schoenung’s group at UC Davis in 2010 with his dissertation, Ultrafine-Grained Aluminum and Boron Carbide Metal Matrix Composites.

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Bio
Lin Huang completed her Ph.D. under the mentorship of Dr. Schoenung at UC Davis in 2011. She defended her dissertation titled: Investigation into Nanoindentation and Nanoscratch Behavior in Oxide Ceramics.

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Bio
Carl Lam obtained his Ph.D. with Dr. Schoenung in 2011 from UC Davis. His dissertation was named Integrating Hazardous Materials Characterization and Assessment Tools to Guide Prevention in Electronic Products and Manufacturing.

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Bio
Hanry Yang earned his Ph.D. in 2015 from UC Davis under the guidance of Dr. Schoenung. The title of his dissertation was Reinforcement Size Effect in Cryomilled Aluminum Boron Carbide Metal Matrix Composites.

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Bio
Dr. Ma is an assistant professor at the department of Mechanical Engineering and School of Advanced Materials Discovery at Colorado State University. She earned her Ph.D. in materials science and engineering with Dr. Julie Schoenung being her adviser at University of California, Davis in December, 2010, and continued her postdoctoral research at UC Davis during January, 2011 to November, 2015. She was also a lecturer for an upper-level undergraduate course, Materials in Engineering Design, at UC Davis from April, 2014 to June, 2015. Dr. Ma received her B.S. in materials physics from University of Science and Technology of China in June, 2006. Before Ma joined Colorado State University in August 2016, she was an assistant project scientist working with Dr. Schoenung and Dr. Lavernia at University of California, Irvine. Her recent research activities focus on multiscale hierarchical structured materials, functionally graded materials, low-work-function electrode materials, spark plasma sintering, additive manufacturing (AM) and sustainability issues associated with metal AM.

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Bio
Brandon Saller earned his Ph.D. from UC Davis in 2015 with Dr. Schoenung as his advisor. His dissertation was titled Iron’s Role in Aluminum: A Powder Metallurgy and Sustainability Approach.

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Bio
Andy graduated with a Ph.D. from UC Davis in September 2016, where he studied the synthesis, mechanical properties, and tribological behavior of carbon nanoparticle reinforced ceramic composites. His dissertation was titled Synthesis, Mechanical Behavior, and Multi-Scale Tribological Performance of Carbon Nanoparticle Reinforced Ceramic Composites. Andy then conducted his postdoctoral research at the U.S. Army Research Laboratory under an Oak Ridge Associated Universities (ORAU) Postdoctoral Fellowship. There Andy worked on a variety of high temperature materials systems for propulsion applications. As of August 2018, Andy is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, CA.

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Bio
Thale obtained his bachelor’s degree from the University of California, Davis in 2013. He received a Ph.D. under the supervision of Dr. Schoenung with his dissertation: Directed Energy Deposited Austenitic Stainless Steels: A Metallurgical Investigation. During his doctoral studies, Thale was the Sandia National Laboratories Campus Executive Fellow at the University of California, Davis. His research has addressed the following topics: the process-structure-property relationships of additively manufactured austenitic stainless steels; reproducible manufacturing of transparent ceramic scintillators; synthesis of novel rare-earth free phosphor materials; the effect of grain refinement on precipitation hardening of aluminum alloy; and rapid prototyping via fused deposition modeling additive manufacturing.

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Bio
Umberto was born and raised in Verona, Italy. He has obtained both a B.S. in industrial engineering and a M.S. in materials engineering from the University of Trento, Italy. He received a Ph.D. under the supervision of Dr. Schoenung with his dissertation: Process-structure-properties relationships in laser powder bed fusion additive manufacturing. Dureing his Ph.D. studies

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Master’s Students

Bio
Koki Shimohashi received his M.Sc. degree in 2005 from UC Davis with the guidance of Dr. Julie Schoenung. He graduated with his master’s thesis, Decision Making Tools for Process and Technology Selection in the Printed Wiring Board Industry: A Study of Economic and Environmental Impact.

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Bio
Akaena Bolstad graduated in 2006 with her M.Sc. from UC Davis, where she was a member of the Schoenung research group. Her thesis was titled: In Depth Analysis of Cell Phone Chargers: A Study of Components, Circuitry and Materials and the Recycle-ability and Environmental Impacts. Akaena is now the Solar Photovoltaic Practice Lead for Advisian and has been working in the Renewable energy and power generation industries for over eight years.

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Bio
Leyla earned her Master’s degree in Materials Science from UC Davis in 2010 under the guidance of Professors Julie Schoenung and Enrique Lavernia. The title of her thesis is An Investigation into the Thermal Stability and Grain Growth Kinetics of Al 5083-B4C Cryomilled Nanocomposites. In 2016 she rejoined UC Davis as Adjunct Lecturer to instruct and sponsor EMS 188, Materials Science Senior Design Project.

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Bio
Kristopher Wehage received his M.Sc. under the mentorship of Professors Julie Schoenung and Enrique Lavernia in 2014 from UC Davis with his master’s thesis, Tools for Material Design and Selection.

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Bio
Matt Dussing earned his M.Sc. with the Schoenung group in 2014 from UC Davis. His thesis was titled: Ultrafine-Grained Aluminum Alloy 5083 and Yttria-Stabilized Zirconia Metal Matrix Composites.

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Bio
Katherine Lorinda Terrassa graduated with her M.Sc. in 2017 from UC Irvine with a thesis entitled: An Investigation of the Reuse of Powder Feedstock, Process Parameters, and General Operational Procedures for Laser Engineered Net Shaping Additive Manufacturing. She is currently a Process Engineer at TenCate Advanced Composites in Fairfield, CA. Her main focus is on process efficiency and quality of our manufactured composite materials that are ultimately used in aeronautics, space and energy systems.

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Bio
Nithya completed her undergraduate studies in metallurgical engineering at the National institute of Technology, India with a thesis on stress corrosion cracking of AZ91 Mg alloy with added Calcium. Thereafter, she worked for a year in India at Tata Motors, an automobile industry pioneer in the development of new technologies for truck and car manufacturing. Over the summer of 2017, Nithya interned at Tesla Motors, where she worked on Al-Si-Mg alloys and magnetic materials. In 2018, Nithya received her M.Sc. from UC Irvine under the guidance of Dr. Schoenung. Her master’s thesis was named: Structure-Process-Property Relationships for LENS® and SLM Processed AlSi10Mg Alloys and the Effect of Heat Treatment.