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Materials Science and Engineering Seminar

Amberlee Haselhuhn

Director for Materials and ICME at LIFT

Abstract

Material innovations have been fundamental to the advancement of human civilization, enabling everything from weapons and armor to art, building structures, medical equipment, and computers. Through experiment or by chance through much of history, materials and processes were developed using trial and error approaches. This “historical” approach is still widely in use from academic and industrial research labs into manufacturing production; however, significant advances in computing technology are driving anew paradigm. Economical parallel computing power and advanced experimental capabilities have improved our phenomenological understanding down to the atomic level and supported subsequent validation of highly specific models. Materials scientists now have tools at their disposal that enable multi-scale modeling of materials and processes to virtually design and manufacture materials. These tools make up a new approach known as integrated computational materials engineering (ICME) which has demonstrated reductions in product development time and costs, improved product quality, and increased manufacturing efficiency. Despite the benefits, a field steeped in tradition is reluctant to adapt to the new era. The reasons for this reluctance will be discussed and technology case studies will be presented that highlight materials manufacturing approaches leveraging trial and error versus ICME. Modern challenges drive the need for new materials and new ways of making them. As key players in the digital age of materials, materials scientists and engineers must have the ability to demonstrate career flexibility and continual growth. The development of this growth mindset will also be discussed, using a Tech graduate’s career path as an example.

Bio

Haselhuhn leads work focused on driving national manufacturing strategy and material innovations for demanding environments, including armor, hypersonics and munitions. Her work involves the development of manufacturing-relevant automated computational workflows and ICME toolsets with experiments to enable accelerated development of new materials and processing methods.

Prior to this, Haselhuhn was a senior researcher at General Motors Global R&D Center, where she developed solutions to eliminate manufacturing constraints associated with welding and joining of new materials and material combinations for body in white structures, including direct aluminum to steel welding. Through this work, Haselhuhn has 10 granted U.S. patents, four pending U.S. patents and two recognized trade secrets.

She has bachelor’s degrees in both materials science and biomedical engineering and a PhD in Materials Science and Engineering from Michigan Technological University.