The 2019 Nelson W. Taylor Lecture Series in Materials Science and Engineering will be held from 8:30 a.m. to noon on Thursday, April 11 in the HUB-Robeson Center’s Freeman Auditorium on Penn State’s University Park campus. The theme of this year’s lecture series is “Materials from First Principles.”
Keynote speaker, Giulia Galli, the Liew Family Professor in Molecular Engineering and Professor of Chemistry at the University of Chicago, and senior scientist at the Argonne National Laboratory, will give the keynote “Asking ‘why’ matters to predict the future” at 11 a.m.
Galli will present insights and first principles predictions of material properties relevant to energy conversion processes and quantum information technologies. She will also discuss some open challenges related to automated integration of theory and computation with experiments, and with validated, interpreted data.
The Nelson W. Taylor Lecture in Materials, sponsored by the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences’ Department of Materials Science and Engineering, also includes three additional talks by Penn State faculty. All talks are free and open to the public.
Michael Janik, professor of chemical engineering, will give the lecture “First principles guided catalyst design” at 8:40 a.m.
Ismaila Dabo, assistant professor of materials science and engineering, will give the lecture “Materials simulation and optimization from first principles” at 9:25 a.m.
Vincent Crespi, distinguished professor of physics, materials science and engineering, and chemistry, will give the lecture “Nanothreads: A new form of 1D sp3 carbon” at 10:10 a.m.
For more information, visit https://www.matse.psu.edu/event/taylor-lecture-prof-giulia-galli-liew-family-professor-electronic-structure-and-simulations online.
The Nelson W. Taylor Lecture Series in Materials Science and Engineering honors the memory of Nelson W. Taylor (1869-1965) who was head of Penn State's Department of Ceramics from 1933-1943. During his tenure as department head, Taylor refined the ceramics undergraduate curriculum, strengthened the graduate program, expanded ties with industry and was able to attract important scientists to the faculty. He is recognized as the individual most responsible for establishing the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences as a major center for ceramics research. The Nelson W. Taylor Lecture Series was established in 1969 and has consistently attracted scientists of international prominence.