Katherine T. Faber currently holds the positions of Simon Ramo Professor of Materials Science at the California Institute of Technology and Co-Director of the Northwestern University-Art Institute of Chicago Center for Scientific Studies in the Arts at Northwestern University.  Her research interests include fracture of brittle materials, toughening mechanisms, ceramic composites and coatings, porous ceramics, and cultural heritage science.

Professor Faber was educated at Alfred University (BS, Ceramic Engineering), the Pennsylvania State University (MS, Ceramic Science) and the University of California, Berkeley (PhD, Materials Science and Engineering). She has held the positions of Invited Summer Employee at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and Development Associate at the Carborundum Company. Prior to joining the faculty at Caltech in 2014, she was Assistant and Associate Professor of Ceramic Engineering at the Ohio State University (1982-87), and Associate Professor, Professor, and Walter P. Murphy Professor Materials Science and Engineering in the McCormick School of Engineering at Northwestern University (1988-2014).

Among Professor Faber’s awards are the National Science Foundation’s Presidential Young Investigator Award, Distinguished Life Member of The American Ceramic Society and Fellow of ASM International, the Charles E. MacQuigg Award for Outstanding Teaching at Ohio State, the Society of Women Engineers Distinguished Educator Award, and the YWCA Achievement Award for Education. She is an ISI Highly Cited Author in Materials (2003), served as President of The American Ceramic Society (2006-07), and was elected to the 2014 American Academy of Arts and Sciences class of fellows.