Dr. Eric J. Wuchina is currently a Senior Materials Research Engineer at the Naval Surface Warfare Center – Carderock Division in West Bethesda, MD, and is on detail as a Program Officer to the Office of Naval Research in Arlington VA, where he manages the Materials for Chemical and Thermal Extremes portfolio. Dr. Wuchina earned his BS in Materials Engineering in 1988 and PhD in Materials Engineering Science in 1995 from Virginia Tech, and his MS in Engineering Materials from the University of Maryland in 1991. He has been with NSWC since 1988.

Dr. Wuchina’s research has focused on ultrahigh temperature ceramics.  This includes co-deposition of HfB2-SiC as the subject of his doctoral dissertation, improving high-temperature mechanical behavior of UHTC materials, and ascertaining the effects of composition and environmental conditions on the oxidation response of a variety of transition metal borides, carbides, and nitrides at T>2000°C.

Dr. Wuchina has published extensively on UHTCs, has been an invited speaker at numerous conferences and universities, and has organized and chaired conference symposia throughout the basic and applied structural ceramics communities.  These include the first ECI International Conference on UHTCs: Materials for Extreme Environment Applications in 2008 through the Fifth in this conference series held in Utah in June 2022.

Dr. Wuchina currently leads the US Department of Defense (DoD) Materials and Manufacturing Processes Community of Interest for Propulsion and Extreme Environment Materials, and he is the lead Navy member of the Interagency Coordinating Committee for Ceramics Research, ensuring complementary effort among the federal agencies.  Dr. Wuchina also serves as a subject matter expert for the DoD’s Joint Hypersonics Transition Office and several DARPA programs.

At ONR Dr. Wuchina’s portfolio has sponsored research at over 20 universities, plus small businesses and National Laboratories. These grants have significantly contributed to the education of the next generation ceramics workforce, critically important to maintain expertise in ceramics science and technology