The Distinguished Life Member grade of Society membership is the Society’s most prestigious level of membership and is awarded in recognition of a member’s contribution to the ceramics profession. The Constitution of the Society states: “Distinguished Life Members shall be current members of the Society of professional eminence who, because of their achievements in the ceramic arts or sciences, or their service to the Society, are elected to such membership by the Board of Directors.”
You must be an ACerS member to nominate someone. Two sponsors are required.
Award Winners
Lisa C. Klein
Lisa C. Klein, PhD, is presently the Chair of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering (MSE) at Rutgers University, New Brunswick-Piscataway, NJ. She received her PhD and SB degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Materials Science and Engineering. In 1977, she was the first woman to join the Department of Ceramic Science & Engineering, later named MSE. She has held visiting faculty positions at the University of Grenoble, Sandia National Laboratories and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. She also served on the National Materials Advisory Board, and was an Editor of the Journal of the American Ceramic Society from 1998-2019.
She is a Fellow of the American Ceramic Society and the Society of Glass Technology, and a Member of the World Academy of Ceramics. Rutgers University awarded her a Human Dignity Award in 2015 from the Committee to Advance Our Common Purposes for “leveraging opportunities to encourage women, underrepresented minorities, and economically disadvantaged individuals to pursue their aspirations.” She received the Life Achievement Award of the International Sol-Gel Society in 2017. In October 2022, she delivered the Arthur L. Friedberg Ceramic Engineering Tutorial and Lecture at the MS&T Meeting in Pittsburgh, PA, titled “From Moon Rocks to Melting Gels”.
Her research focuses on sol-gel science and engineering, particularly sol-gel applications in electrolytes, electrochromics, membranes and nanocomposites. More recently, she has focused on sol-gel processing of organic-inorganic hybrids and their behavior in corrosion coatings and surface textures.
Zuhair A. Munir
Professor Zuhair A. Munir is a Distinguished Professor, Emeritus in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering and Dean, Emeritus of the College of Engineering at the University of California, Davis. He received his BS (Honors) in Chemical Engineering and his MS and PhD in Materials Science (Ceramics) from the University of California, Berkeley.
He received many honors and awards including from ACerS: The W. David Kingery Award, the John Jeppson Award, the Outstanding Educator in Ceramic Engineering Award, and ECD James I Mueller Award. Other awards include the Gold Medal from the Russian Academy of Science, the Nano50 Award, the Medal of Honor from the International Organization of SHS, the von Humboldt Prize (Germany), the UC Davis Prize, the Japan Government Award for Foreign Scientists, and twice NSF’s Creativity in Research Award. He is a Fellow and Life Member of the ASM International, a Fellow of ACerS, and Academician of the World Academy of Ceramics.
Prof. Munir is credited with being one of the first scientists in the U.S. to investigate the role of electromagnetic fields in materials processing, including spark plasma sintering (SPS) process. He is also one of the first scientists in the U.S. to explore self-propagating high-temperature synthesis (SHS). His research has not been limited to these studies, but has widely ranged over various topics including, functionally-graded composite materials and multilayer combustion systems, and has produced the amazing accomplishments in each of them.
Professor Munir has published more than 500 journal papers, edited nine proceedings volumes, co-authored 16 US Patents and one German Patent. He is listed as Author of One of the Top 1% Most Highly Cited Papers in Materials Science in the World (SciVerse Scopus Database). He served as Editor of the Journal of Materials Science, Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Materials Synthesis and Processing, Associate Editor of the Journal of the American Ceramic Society, Principal Editor of the Journal of Materials Research, Divisional Editor of the Journal of the Electrochemical Society, and others. He has served in a number of Society-level committees including the Jeppson Award Selection Committee, the Sub-Committee for Phase Equilibria, the Task Force for Globalization, the Editorial Committee, and the Ceramic Educational Council.