The Robert B. Sosman Award is the highest recognition of scientific accomplishment given by the Basic Science Division and is given in recognition of outstanding achievement in basic science of an area that results in a significant impact to the field of ceramics.
The awardee presents a plenary lecture at the ACerS Annual Meeting, and receives a certificate commemorating the event and a piece of glassware. The lecture is given each year by the awardee who has been deemed by the award committee to have made the most significant contribution to the field of ceramics.
Contact
Contact: BSD Leadership
Email completed form to Erica Zimmerman at ezimmerman@ceramics.org.
Award Winners
Wai-Yim Ching
Wai-Yim Ching is a Curators’ Professor of Physics at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, USA. He leads the Electronic Structure Group (ESG). Ching began teaching at UMKC as an assistant professor of physics in 1978. He quickly rose to a tenured associate professor in 1981 and a full professor in 1984. In 1988, he was named to his current role as a Curators’ Distinguished Professor of Physics. His research and publications cover diverse disciplines, such as condensed matter physics, ceramics and glasses, chemistry, biology, material science, engineering, medical science, geophysics and earth science. He was one of the most cited physicists in the world from 1981 to 1997, with more 2,000 citations of 171 papers. To date, he has published more than 425 papers in peer reviewed journals with total citations over 19,800.
In 2017, Wai-Yim Ching received the University of Missouri’s Presidential Award for sustained Career Excellence. He is a fellow of The American Ceramic Society, American Physical Society, American Association for the Advancement of Science and Royal Society of Chemistry in Britain. He is an Associate Editor of the Journal of the American Ceramic Society and also serving as an Editorial Board Member of Scientific Reports. Additional awards include the Distinguished Scientist Award, Outstanding Referee Award, ASEE Distinguished Summer Faculty Fellow, N.T. Veatch Award for Distinguished Research and Creative Activity at UMKC, Mid-America State University Association Honor Lecturer, First Van Vleck Lecturer, and UKC trustee Fellowship. He was elected to the Academician of the World Academy of Ceramics.