Kevin Talley

Kevin Talley is a senior in Materials Science and Engineering at Boise State University in his home town of Boise, Idaho, where he works as an undergraduate research assistant at the university, as well as part time at a local restaurant.

After receiving a Bachelor of Arts in Communications from Boise State University in 2009, Talley entered the materials science and engineering program, which he will complete in 2015. He is a member of the Boise State Materials Science Club and works for the Functional Ceramics Research Group, researching the relationship between structure and dielectric properties in doped perovskites of various vacancy concentrations. Selected as an undergraduate research fellow at the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Gaithersburg, Maryland, he spent two summer characterizing ceramic thermoelectric materials. Talley served two terms on the President’s Council of Student Advisors of The American Ceramic Society, where he attended the yearly business meetings and helped produce the council’s outreach materials science lab and demo kits for grade school educators.

Upon completion of his second bachelor’s degree at Boise State University, Talley plans to pursue a doctorate in applied physics and materials science. Eventually, he would like to combine his engineering and communications backgrounds to teach future scientists. His long term research interest lies in materials for energy conversion and storage because he believes energy production and consumption are the most important challenges for modern society.