Ela Sikora, Corrosion Lab Research Associate, and Elizabeth Montgomery, doctoral student, recently hosted middle school girls in the Engineering Science and Mechanics Corrosion Laboratory. They talked to the students about corrosion of materials in the human body. The girls then had a chance to conduct a lab based on what they had learned. The participants were from Uniontown Area, St. Marys Catholic, Laurel Highlands, and Brownville Area schools.

Special thanks to David Meredith, associate professor of general engineering; Fayette Campus, for coordinating the event with the Corrosion Laboratory.

Merton C. Flemings, Toyota Professor Emeritus of Materials Processing at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and 2007 Franklin Institute laureate, will visit for a symposium April 22-23.

The visit will include a presentation by Flemings, titled “Solidification, Innovation and Invention.” The two-day event at the Nittany Lion Inn on the University Park campus will also feature keynote speeches, research presentations, a reception and a dinner.

Flemings received the Franklin Institute’s 2007 Benjamin Franklin Medal for outstanding contributions to understanding the fundamental and technological aspects of the solidification of metallic alloys, including research leading to the development of a new industry known as semi-solid metalworking.

He has been active nationally and internationally in strengthening the field of materials science and engineering and in the delineation of new directions for the field. He is the author or co-author of 300 papers, 31 patents and two books in the fields of solidification science and engineering, foundry technology and materials processing. Flemings has received more than a dozen awards and medals and is a member or Fellow in multiple professional societies. He also serves as the director of the Lemelson-MIT program, which aims to honor and inspire inventiveness in young people.

The events are being co-hosted by the Department of Engineering Science and Mechanics, the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, the College of Engineering and the Materials Research Institute.

For additional information contact Cheryl Markley at cmarkley@psu.edu or 814-863-7966.

Judith Todd calls it a basic science project, to understand the physics of how to sustain laser plasma - a bubble of ionized gas created by absorbing the power of a laser beam or beams - and then how to use the plasma to develop novel compositions and microstructures on surfaces.