People

Dr. Diana Berman is an Associate Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at the University of North Texas. She received her Ph.D. from North Carolina State University and worked as a PostDoctoral Researcher at Argonne National Laboratory. Her research interests are in synthesis and characterization of nanostructures, surfaces, and interfaces of nanostructured and 2D materials for precise control and improvement of their tribological properties and functionality. Her work focuses on understanding the fundamental mechanisms of materials interactions to enable the design of durable, low-friction surfaces for engineering applications in extreme environments. She has published 100+ publications (with ~8000 citations and h-index 33), 1 book and 4 book chapters. She also holds more than 10 patents (both US and International). Among her awards are TechConnect Innovation Awards, Society of Tribologists and Lubrication Engineers Early Career Award, NSF Early Career Award, and Fulbright Scholarship Award. She serves as the co-Chair for AVS ASED Symposium.

Dr. Andrey Voevodin is a Professor of Materials Science and Engineering and Associate Dean for Research in the College of Engineering. Before joining UNT in 2015, he worked at the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory, Materials and Manufacturing Directorate, leading tribology and protective coatings, thermal management, and nanoelectronic materials research teams. Relevant to this project, Dr. Voevodin has an extensive expertise in metal-ceramic bonding, interface adhesion and mechanical testing, interface thermal transport that provide the necessary scientific base for creating strong and high temperature stable bonding of RCCA/UHTC material systems. He has studied gradient composition metal-ceramic interfaces with elastic moduli tailored for thermal and mechanical stress equalization and reducing peak shear stresses at the interfaces, metallic-covalent bonding tailoring for joining metals and ceramics, thermal transport anisotropy in ceramics and thermal conductance at metal-ceramic interfaces, explored phonon tunneling and phonon-electron coupling at such interfaces. Dr. Voevodin is an AVS Science and Technology Society (AVS) Fellow since 2010 and has received numerous awards. He is author/co-author of 15 patents, 1 book and 8 book chapters, and over 365 publications (citations >15,700, h-index 75).

Dr. Samir Aouadi is a Professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at the University of North Texas and is the Associate Chair for Graduate Studies. He received a Ph.D. in Applied Physics from the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, B.C. His research expertise is in surface science and engineering for defense, space, aerospace, and biomedical applications. He has pioneered research on high temperature ceramics with a focus on tribology, thermal barrier coatings, and self-healing ceramics. He has published over 125 papers (Total citations > 3400, h-index = 35) and has received over $4.5M in funding. Dr. Aouadi has served as an editor for Surface and Coatings Technology (2012-Pres.) and is on the advisory board of the European Materials Research Society (2016-Pres.) and the International Symposium on Ceramics CIMTEC (2010-Pres.). He has been very active with the International Conference of Metallurgical Coatings and Thin Films (ICMCTF) for 22 years: Chair of various sessions and symposia (2003-2016), guest editor then leas editor and publications chair (2011-Pres.). He was elected program chair for the ICMCTF 2022 meeting, and general chair of the ICMCTF 2023 meeting.

Dr. Mukherjee is an Associate Professor in Material Science and Engineering. Dr. Sundeep Mukherjee received his bachelor's degree from the Indian Institute of Technology, and his master's and doctoral degrees from the California Institute of Technology. Prior to coming to UNT, he worked as a post-doctoral research associate at Yale University and senior engineer in Intel's Logic Technology Development division.

Dr. Scharf is a Professor in Materials Science and Engineering. He studies the processing, metrology and characterization of advanced ceramic, metallic and functionally-graded composite (or hybrid) materials for aerospace, energy, and biomedical applications. He hopes to identify and find better ways to control the wear and corrosion performance of components. He received his doctorate and master's degree from the University of Alabama.

Dr. Nasrazadani is a Professor and Senior Director for Technology and Management Programs in Mechanical Engineering. His research has contributed to understanding the mechanisms of atmospheric corrosion of high-strength low-alloy steels and the characterization of corrosion products of ferrous and nonferrous alloys. His research group is developing a standard atmospheric corrosion test protocol to assess corrosion resistance in all-aluminum microchannel heat exchangers.