Four ACerS members were named 2016 Fellows by the National Academy of Inventors last week. They are Delbert Day (Missouri University of Science and Technology), Richard Riman (Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey), Mrityunjay Singh (Ohio Aerospace Institute), and Anil Virkar (University of Utah).

According to NAI’s press release, the class of 175 new Fellows will be inducted on April 6, 2017, at a ceremony at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston, Mass. This year’s 175 Fellows are named on 5,437 U.S. patents.

NAI confers the honor “solely to academic inventors who have demonstrated a prolific spirit of innovation in creating or facilitating outstanding inventions that have made a tangible impact on quality of life, economic development, and welfare of society,” according to the release.

With the 2016 class, NAI now has 757 Fellows, who are affiliated with 229 university and government research institutions. The full Fellows cohort has been named on more than 26,000 U.S. patents.

Studies conducted by NAI show that the inventions that the Fellows commercialize carry substantial economic impact. “According to the 2016 NAI Activities Report, published in Jul. 2016, NAI Fellows have generated more than 8,500 licensed technologies and companies and created more than 1.1 million jobs, with over $100 billion in revenue generated based on their discoveries,” according to the press release.

Day and Singh are each past presidents of ACerS—Singh having just completed his term in October 2016. Day belongs to the Glass and Optical Materials Division; Riman belongs to Cements and the Engineering Ceramics Divisions; Singh has a long history of leadership in the Engineering Ceramics Division; and Virkar belongs to the Basic Science Division.

All four honorees are Fellows of The American Ceramic Society.

Congratulations to Day, Riman, Singh, and Virkar!

Author

Eileen De Guire