UA Engineering Professor Receives Oak Ridge Powe Grant

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — Dr. Lin Li, assistant professor of metallurgical and materials engineering at The University of Alabama, was one of 35 researchers selected to receive a nationally-competitive grant from Oak Ridge Associated Universities through the Ralph E. Powe Junior Faculty Enhancement Awards program.

The awards are given to professors in the first two years of their tenure-track position in life sciences; mathematics and computer science; engineering and other applied science; physical sciences; policy; management; or education. Each winner receives a $5,000 grant, and their ORAU-affiliated university agrees to match the sum.

This award will support Li’s research on multi-scale modeling of shear banding in metallic glasses. The research addresses the need for an improved understanding and predicting on how the detailed metallic glass structure determines the formation of shear bands by virtue of multi-scale computer simulations and material models.

This work will answer directly to the needs of computationally driven materials innovation, as it promises to markedly enhance the capability to predict and utilize shear bands, the prime issue that impedes wide applications of metallic glasses as structural components.

The award will also initiate her collaboration with the experienced research scientists on metallic glass physics and mechanics at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, along with the high performance computing resource and experimental facility.

In 1837, The University of Alabama became one of the first five universities in the nation to offer engineering classes. Today, UA’s fully accredited College of Engineering has more than 4,500 students and more than 120 faculty. In the last eight years, students in the College have been named USA Today All-USA College Academic Team members, Goldwater, Hollings, Portz, Mitchell and Truman scholars.