Materials Science Student Selected for Leadership Training

Hande Demirkiran, a doctoral student in the Materials Science & Engineering Department at The University of Texas at Arlington, has received an esteemed scholarship to attend a leadership-training program sponsored by the materials society ASM International (ASM). The ASM’s Materials Education Foundation presented only six of these scholarships worldwide.

The ASM’s LeaderShape Institute is a six-day program conducted each summer at the University of Illinois. The Institute presents student leaders with ways to meet the changing needs of a diverse world and helps them develop skills that will benefit them personally and that will also be valuable to the companies and industries in which they will work.

The scholarship is valued at $1,400, covering all expenses associated with participating in the program. Each summer session is comprised of approximately 60 students from diverse ethnic, religious and cultural backgrounds.

“I believe this program will give me the opportunity to observe other future scientist leaders, expend my vision, and make me aware of my goals, leadership skills and strengths,” said Ms. Demirkiran, “It might also help me identify my shortcomings and how to cope with them. I’ve been a teaching assistant in a junior-level laboratory since 2005, and I hope a career in materials education is in my future. I think improving my leadership qualities through the LeaderShape program will help me to have better communications with my students and co-workers.”

	Rashed Adnan Islam and Shashank Priya Winner: Third Prize Ceramography Contest Category: Transmission Electron Microscopy Organized by: American Ceramic Society (Basic Science Division)
	Vaneet Sharma and Shashank Priya Winner: Third Prize Ceramography Contest Category: Scanning Electron Microscopy Organized by: American Ceramic Society (Basic Science Division)

HRTEM Scholarship Rashed Islam Ph.D. Candidate

Doctoral student Rashed Islam has been chosen to attend the prestigious Pan American Advanced Studies Institute on Transmission Electron Microscopy in Materials Science. The summer program, which is open to only 48 students in all the Americas, is sponsored by the National Science Foundation and will be conducted at the University of Chile in Santiago.
Rashed will have all his expenses paid and will attend presentations by noted professors from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Spain and the United States. He will also participate in projects involving high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM) and its application to materials and geological sciences. The HRTEM technique is the most powerful mode for investigating microstructures.

“I’m excited about attending,” said Rashed. “I’m working on magnetoelectric materials made of nanocomposites, and using high-resolution transmission electron microscopy is the only way to accurately evaluate the interactions of the materials. What I gain by attending the institute will greatly enhance my research capabilities.”

Carl D. Wiseman  Service Award - Ramoun Mourhatch, Ph. D. candidate

Ramoun Mourhatch received his B.Sc. in Materials Science and Engineering from the Sharif (Aryamehr) University of Technology in Tehran, Iran, in 2002. He started graduate studies at UT Arlington that fall.