Plenary Speakers

Plenary Speakers

Professor Olivia A. Graeve

Prof. Olivia A. Graeve (http://graeve.ucsd.edu/) joined the University of California San Diego in 2012 and is currently Jacobs Family Professor in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Director of the CaliBaja Center for Resilient Materials and Systems (http://resilientmaterials.ucsd.edu/), and Director of the Program in Materials Science and Engineering.  She holds a Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering (2001) from the University of California, Davis, and a Bachelor of Science degree in Structural Engineering (1995) from the University of California San Diego.  Her area of research focuses on the design and processing of new materials for extreme environments.  Prof. Graeve has been involved in many activities related to the recruitment and retention of women and underrepresented minority students in science and engineering and has received several prestigious awards including the Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics and Engineering Mentoring in 2020.  She has been inducted into the Tijuana Walk of Fame (2014), the Mexican Academy of Engineering (2016), the Mexican Academy of Sciences (2019), the Latin American Academy of Sciences (2022), and has been named Fellow of the American Ceramic Society (2017) and of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (2021).

Title: Materials for Extreme (and Space) Environments: Crystallography and Properties

The idea of living on Mars or the Moon has been a staple of science fiction since the 19th century.  However, if this sci-fi dream were to ever become reality, what would it be like to live there?  Conditions make living on Mars extremely challenging.  In particular, materials needed for such extreme environments need to be discovered and designed.  In this talk, we will present an overview and current research on ceramic materials, especially their crystallography, for potential uses at extreme environments, including ultra-high and ultra-low temperatures, impact, and radiation.  These research efforts build on significant international collaborations of the CaliBaja Center for Resilient Materials and Systems, a bi-national effort between UC San Diego and the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México.  A short discussion on student exchange opportunities, such as the ENLACE summer research program, will also be described.

Dr. Manvendra Dubey

Dr. Manvendra Dubey is a Laboratory Fellow at US Department of Energy’s (DOE) Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL). His PhD at Harvard and postdoc at SRI-International elucidated radical-molecule reaction mechanisms and advanced stratospheric ozone photochemical models. Over the past 26 years Dubey’s research at LANL uses laboratory and field measurements to test and refine multi-scale models and improve climate change forecasts. His research isolated the anthropogenic climate signal from natural variability and showed that Arctic is warning much faster than the globe. He performed targeted aerosol, and greenhouse gas measurements from ground, air, and space to verify inventories and validate model parameterizations. He showed that carbonaceous particles from fires play a key role in climate and nuclear winter, and he derived formulations to treat them. Dubey co-discovered the methane hot spot over Four Corners. He demonstrated that remote-sensing can be used to verify carbon dioxide and methane emissions from power-plants, cities, and dairies. He developed fast machine learning algorithms to find gas leaks that won the 2019 R&D 100 and the 2022 Energy-I Corps awards. His team launched compact hyperspectral imagers on 2 CubeSats to monitor pollution from space that won a 2023 R&D100 award. He leads DOE’s methane leak quantification task for DOE to prioritize plugging of abandoned orphan wells. Dubey also developed innovative technologies like direct air capture of carbon dioxide and regional hydrogen systems to help accelerate decarbonization. He is an AAAS, LANL, and Fulbright-Nehru Fellow. He is an adjunct Professor at Duke University and editor of Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics. He was a Program Director at NSF where he led its 4th National Climate Assessment. Dubey has mentored 12 staff, 22 postdocs and 50 students at LANL and gave the prestigious Keeling lecture in 2023.

Title: Greenhouse Gases Observations: 1957 – 2100: Past, Present & Future

Dr. David Charles Keeling’s precise CO2 observations at the remote Mauna Loa site discerned its global rise that is attributed to emissions from human activities. His Keeling curve is the observational framework to examine anthropogenic climate change that has expanded to other greenhouse gases (GHGs) and monitoring techniques. The accelerating GHG rise and the heat absorbed by them led to concerns about climate change that have exacerbated.
My lecture will:
1. Trace how multiple long-term atmospheric CO2 observations (in situ surface, and total column from ground and satellites) have helped quantify that vegetation and ocean soak up half of the human CO2 emissions and elucidate regional fluxes (national to Amazon).
2. Describe international agreements that slowed the rise of halocarbons and strengthening policies to reduce CH4, CO2 and N2O emissions. Highlight how novel CH4 observations are helping constrain emissions (at Four Corners, dairies and cities)
3. Discuss the future trajectory of CO2 and monitor efficacy of decarbonizing efforts and carbon credits. Stress that positive carbon-climate feedback poses a risk, and their early detection is key to mitigation.
In closing I will point to decarbonization efforts in ceramics production and use in durable goods, energy efficient buildings, power, and pipeline systems.

Steven C. Tidrow, Ph.D.

Steven Tidrow is as an Inamori Professor of Material Science and Engineering within the New York State College of Ceramics (NYSCC) at Alfred University where he has served since 2015. Steven earned a Ph.D. in Engineering Physics from the University of Oklahoma, and both a Master of Science in Applied Physics and a Bachelor of Science in Engineering Physics with Electrical Engineering Specialization from Texas Tech University. After graduation, Steven served as a National Research Council Associate within the Electronics Technology and Devices Laboratory a predecessor of the U.S. Army Research Laboratory (ARL); joined ARL in 1994 as a GS-12 Electronics Engineer, principal investigator. As principal investigator, and as team leader beginning 1998, Steven conducted and led research on energy conversion, energy storage, radio-frequency, microwave, and millimeter wave devices. In 2005, as a DB-IV (GS-15 equivalent) Steven recognized the crisis in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) and transitioned to academia just as the National Science Foundation announced the STEM crisis to Congress in 2007. Steven gave back to one of the two states where he was educated, addressing the STEM crisis as Chair of the Department of Physics and Geology at the University of Texas – Pan American (UTPA), a greater than 90% Hispanic serving institution. Also, Steven served two-years as the Inaugural Associate Dean for Research and Innovative Education within the College of Science and Mathematics at UTPA. Steven is recipient of: Material/Product Performance Award (1997); Department of Army Research and Development Achievement Award for Technical Excellence (2002); Scientific Excellence Award (2005); John F. McMahon Ceramic Teaching Excellence Award (2017-2018); Inductee of the NY-Alfred University Chapter of Tau Beta Pi (2019); serves as a Fellow (2017) and Global Ambassador of The American Ceramic Society (2019). Steven has organized/co-organized numerous symposia and conferences; has published numerous articles and several book chapters; possesses h- and i-indices of 18 and 26, respectively; and, is an inventor through thirty U.S. Patents.

Title: Identifying Opportunities in Education: Commonalities Using Illustrations

Identifying opportunities and implementing strategies that grow the education, including science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), opportunity tree can be challenging. Through observing data and identifying, visualizing and verbalizing, commonalities of the data, the lynchpins for improving education can be determined and addressed. For local communities, implementation of appropriate strategies to address the lynchpins should/must initially provide a win for buy-in of each constituent and simultaneously provide a high return on investment for administrators. Strategies addressing lynchpin commonalities not only enable the local community; they can impact and enable regional, national and world communities. For STEM education, a significant lynchpin occurs in the 6^th to 8^th grade range and results in disparity toward underrepresented groups. Inspiring the minds of youth can result in improved student learning outcomes, additional investments obtained through return on investment, and increases in educational efficiency. Several examples are utilized identifying lynchpins and solutions that have enabled youth and have provided a high return on investment for local, regional, state, and national governments. Ultimately, through positive and integrated feedback, enhancement of student learning outcomes occur while simultaneously the “effective” cost of education reduces.