Gary Was
Professor Was received his ScD from MIT in 1980. He is Professor of Nuclear Engineering and Radiological Sciences and also of Materials Science and Engineering at the University of Michigan. He has held positions as Director of the Michigan Memorial Phoenix Energy Institute, Associate Dean of the College of Engineering and Chair of the Nuclear Engineering and Radiological Sciences Department.
Professor Was’ research is focused on materials for advanced nuclear energy systems and radiation materials science, including environmental effects on materials, radiation effects, ion beam surface modification of materials and nuclear fuels. He has worked extensively in experiments and modeling of the effects of irradiation, corrosion, stress corrosion cracking and hydrogen embrittlement on iron- and nickel-base austenitic alloys. He has led the refinement of models for radiation induced segregation to account for composition dependent processes, and developed the first comprehensive thermodynamic and kinetic model for chromium carbide formation and chromium depletion in nickel-base alloys. Most recently his group has led the development of proton irradiation as a technique for emulating neutron irradiation effects in reactor structural materials and has conducted some of the first stress corrosion cracking experiments of austenitic and ferritic alloys in supercritical water.
During his tenure at the University of Michigan, Professor Was has graduated 22 Ph.D. students, created 3 new graduate level courses dealing primarily with irradiation effects on materials and on nuclear fuels, and an engineering summer course on Ion Beam Modification of Materials.
He served as chair of the Nuclear Engineering Department Heads Organization and co-authored the first ASEE report on Manpower in the Nuclear Industry. He is currently serving on the Board of Directors of the Engineering Research Council of ASEE. He has helped to organize more than a dozen technical symposia and is a member of the American Society for Engineering Education, Materials Research Society, American Society for Metals, the Minerals, Metals and Materials Society, the National Association of Corrosion Engineers, Sigma Xi and Tau Beta Pi. He was chair of the Materials Research Society, Fall 1994 meeting.
He is director of four laboratories at the University of Michigan: the Michigan Ion Beam Laboratory for Surface Modification and Analysis, the High Temperature Corrosion Laboratory, the Irradiated Materials Testing Laboratory and the Materials Preparation Laboratory.
In 1985, Professor Was received the Presidential Young Investigator award from NSF, the 1994 Excellence in Research Award from the College of Engineering. In 2000 he was awarded the Champion H. Matthews Award from TMS and in 2004 he was awarded the Outstanding Achievement Award by the Materials Science and Technology Division of the American Nuclear Society. He is a Fellow of ASM International, NACE International and the American Nuclear Society.
Professor Was has published over 150 technical articles in referred, archival journals, has presented over 200 conference papers and has given more than 65 invited seminars and talks.
Dr. Was is a coauthor of Dr. James Duderstadt 's February 2009 Brookings paper outlining the establishment of several dozen "energy discovery-innovation institutes,"—known as e-DIIs—across the country. For more information on this report ...
Gary Was is a MMPEI Faculty Fellow.