CEE and ChE Chairs Jerome Hajjar and Thomas Webster Featured in Advanced Materials & Processes
ChE Chair & Professor Thomas J. Webster and CEE Chair & Professor Jerome F. Hajjar were featured in the November/December issue of Advanced Materials and Processes, an ASM International Publication.
In the Research Spotlight section of the magazine, the article “Five Ways Materials Testing Is Changing the World” focuses on the research of Webster and Hajjar. The Chairs were honored as two out of only five scientists profiled for the piece.
Jerry Hajjar and the STReSS Lab were lauded for their use of innovative building materials. Hajjar, CDM Smith Professor, Chair of Civil and Environmental Engineering says, “In civil engineering, anything that is expected to take any reasonable level of stress and strain or be subjected to elevated temperatures or to a lot of moisture needs to be tested and characterized.” He also notes “One of the challenges in civil engineering is that while engineers design structures not to collapse in major events, we’re not very good at mimicking collapse in simulated environments.” By focusing on the microscopic ways in which a material behaves, Hajjar hopes to bring about new ideas and change to the field of civil engineering research.
Mechanical testing is pioneering the way for improvements in healthcare. Thomas Webster, Professor and Department Chair, Chemical Engineering and The Art Zafiropoulo Chair in Engineering researches biomedical polymers for use in ligament repair. Students and faculty in the Webster Nanomedicine Lab also focus on hydrogels development for its properties in tissue engineering. The primary focus of research in the lab is the design, synthesis, and evaluation of nanomaterials for various medical applications. “We use our test system to pretend we are injecting the hydrogel into bone or other tissues.” says Thomas Webster. “The future of mechanical testing is to tell us how new materials behave,” remarks Webster. “The world needs better materials.”
ASM International was founded in 1913 as the American Society for Metals. Today, ASM is the world’s largest association of metals-centric materials scientists and engineers with over 30,000 members worldwide. ASM is dedicated to informing, educating and connecting the materials community to solve problems and stimulate innovation around the world. For more information visit:
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