Star Steel researcher to Take Tata Steel & Royal Academy of Engineering Joint Chair
WMG at the University of Warwick have announced that Professor Sridhar Seetharaman has been appointed to the Tata Steel and Royal Academy of Engineering joint Chair for research into Low Carbon Materials Technology.
Professor Sridhar Seetharaman is currently the POSCO Professor of Materials Science and Engineering and Co-Director of the Center For Iron and Steel Research at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. He gained his undergraduate degree from the Royal Institute of Technology (Stockholm, Sweden) and his PhD from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He also spent a year as a research associate at Imperial College in London. He is currently the principal editor of AIST (Association for Iron and Steel Technology Transactions) and he is on the International advisory board of Steel Research International and ISIJ (Iron and Steel Institute of Japan).
His current research interests are aimed at understanding the kinetics and thermodynamics of high temperature reactions and transformations that are relevant for improvement of processing efficiency and product quality of metals, particularly steels. This includes studies on metal extraction, refining, casting and oxidation. He has been extensively involved with the manufacture of Advanced-High-Strength Steels such as TRIP-steels for light-weight automotive parts. He has, besides ferrous metallurgy, also been involved with materials performance at high temperatures in fossil-fuel power industries.
Professor Sridhar Seetharaman will take up the Chair at WMG on March 1st 2013.
WMG Chairman Professor Lord Kumar Bhattacharyya said: "Professor Sridhar Seetharaman is an international star in this field of his research. We are delighted that he has been attracted to this opportunity created by a partnership between WMG, the prestigious Royal Academy of Engineering and the renowned Tata Steel Group. This will further enhance the significant work that WMG is doing in areas such as low carbon vehicle technology and enable more vital research that will help both major international manufacturers, and many West Midlands region SMEs".
When the new Chair was created, Robert Barrett, Head of Research Programmes at the Royal Academy of Engineering, said: “The Academy strongly supports the effective combination of academia and industry through our prestigious Research Chairs Scheme. This new professorship at the WMG is an example of the Academy’s commitment in supporting areas of strategic importance to the UK economy”
Dr Debashish Bhattacharjee, Group Director for Research, Development and Technology at Tata Steel, also said at that time: "We are very pleased and honoured that the Royal Academy of Engineering is supporting this Chair. We will be using this to spearhead our strategic work in steel-based low carbon solutions for the automotive and other related sectors to show that steel is very much part of the solution to the environmental challenges facing our society."
For further information please contact:
Peter Dunn, Head of Communications, Communications Office, University House, University of Warwick,
Tel: 024 76 523708 Mobile 07767 655860 Email p.j.dunn@warwick.ac.uk
PR190 12th November 2012
