Suri A. Sastri (Winner in the Americas)

Dr. Suri Sastri, Founder, CEO and Chairman at Surmet Corp, Burlington, MA earned a Ph.D. in Metallurgical Engineering from Imperial College, London, UK following his B.S. in Metallurgical Eng. from Banaras University, India. Dr. Sastri did two consecutive post-doctoral research stints; first at the Australian Institute of Nuclear Science & Engineering at Lucas Heights, NSW, Australia (1964-1967) and then at Institute for Atomic Research, Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa (1967-1968). In June of 1968, Dr. Sastri was hired by the Gillette Company in Boston, MA. He was promoted sequentially to positions of Chief Research Scientist, Group Manager, and Director of Chemical and Materials Research by 1975. He is the inventor of Gillette’s Platinum Plus^TM razor blade coating and the MicroSmooth^TM edges in Trac II^® systems.

In late 1982, after 14.5 years at Gillette, Dr. Sastri embarked on entrepreneurial venture by founding Surmet Corp, an advanced materials technology solutions company. Under his vision and leadership, Surmet has now become the major supplier of advanced polycrystalline transparent ceramic materials ALON® and Spinel to Major Defense Contractors and Fortune 500 companies in the US. Headquartered in Burlington, MA, Surmet has manufacturing facilities in Buffalo, NY and Murrieta, CA. Surmet is also a recipient of ACerS prestigious Corporate Technical Achievement Award in 2013.

Dr. Sastri has 40+ publications and holds 16+ patents related to advanced materials. He was awarded the ASM/IMS Jaquetté Gold in 1973. He is also the recipient of ASM’s William Hunt Eisenman Award in 2007 for his outstanding contribution in the field of Materials. Dr. Sastri is a corporate member at the ACerS. He is currently focusing on innovations leading to very high volume at lower cost manufacturing of transparent ceramics.