Minoru Tomozawa

Minoru Tomozawa is Professor of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, NY, USA.

He received a BS degree in Electrochemistry at Yokohama National University in Japan, and a Ph.D. in Metallurgy and Materials Science at the University of Pennsylvania. He worked at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute as a Post-Doctoral Research Associate (1969-1970); Assistant Professor (1970-1972); Associate Professor (1972-1979); Professor (1979 – present). He served as the Director of the Center for Glass Science and Technology (1985-1992) at Rensselaer.

He has authored 295 technical papers, edited 9 books and holds 3 patents. His primary research area is glass science. Received the International Contribution Award from the Ceramic Society of Japan in 1991.

He has been a member of the American Ceramic Society, since 1969 and is a member of the Glass and Optical Materials Division. Dr. Tomozawa served as a Division Editor and Division Chair; became a Fellow of the Society in 1983; received the Ceramic Education Council’s Outstanding Educator Award in 1988; the George W. Morey Award of the Glass and Optical Materials Division in 2011; and will be elevated to Distinguished Life Member of the American Ceramic Society in September 2019.

His current research interest is glass and water interaction. Through this work, he found fast surface relaxation, which led to a new method of making stronger glass fibers and clarification of various mysteries of glasses such as fatigue limit.