Magic or Magnetics? Novel Materials for Energy Transfer

ChE Seminar Series Presents:

Laura H. Lewis, Ph.D.
Distinguished University and Cabot Professor,  Chemical Engineering
Distinguished University and Cabot Professor,  Mechanical and Industrial Engineering

“Magic or Magnetics? Novel Materials for Energy Transfer”

Abstract: Magnetic materials permit the wireless interconversion of electrical, mechanical and, increasingly, thermal energies to benefit an enormous breadth of technologies including sustainable energy, e-mobility, data storage and biomedicine. Magnetic performance may be controlled through engineering at the atomic, nanoscopic and microstructural levels, providing a vast arena for realization of new types of magnetic materials. This presentation provides a brief overview of selected research activities, with focus on recent progress to realize a new material, tetrataenite, that holds promise as a new advanced permanent magnet free of critical, geopolitically constrained elements.

Biography: Laura H. Lewis is a Distinguished University and Cabot Professor of Chemical Engineering and Profes¬sor of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering at Northeastern University in Boston, MA, U.S.A. Prior to her faculty position at Northeastern University, she was a research group leader and Associate Department Chair in the Nanoscience Department of Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL), a U.S. Department of Energy Laboratory devoted to research in the physical, biomedical, and environmental sciences, as well as in energy technologies. Concurrently, she was the Deputy Director of the BNL Center for Functional Nanomaterials, a DOE national user facility to provide researchers with state-of-the-art capabilities to fabricate and study nanoscale materials. Laura received her Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin; she earned a M.S. degree in Electronic Materials from M.I.T. and a B.S. degree in Physics and Earth Sciences from the University of California at San Diego.

Laura’s research focuses on investigating the materials factors at the atomic level that provide functionality to magnetic materials, with a specialization in sustainable elements and rare earths. She has authored over 200 peer-reviewed publications and delivered over 100 invited presentations at national and international venues. She has participated on a number of advisory panels, most recently as am Advisory Board Member of the Critical Materials Institute, A DOE Energy Innovation Hub, the IEEE Magnetics Society AdCom and International Advisory Committee of the Joint European Magnetics Symposia. She has been appointed as a member of the U.S. Technical Advisory Group to the ISO/TC 298 Standard for Rare Earth that will determine the U.S. position on standardization in the field of rare earth mining, concentration, extraction, separation and conversion to useful rare earth compounds/materials which are key inputs to manufacturing and technologies.

Laura is a Senior Member of the IEEE and served as Conference Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Magnetics (2008 – 2018) and Chair of the IEEE Magnetics Society Technical Committee (2017 – 2019). She is a Fellow of the American Physical Society, a Fulbright Fellow as well as a member of the Materials Research Society, the American Chemical Society and the American Society for Engineering Education.

Please email Alyssa Ramsey at a.ramsey@northeastern.edu for the link to the seminar.