Metallurgical engineering PhD wins Spring 2020 Rath Award

Virginia “Ginny” Euser, PhD in metallurgical and materials engineering, is the winner of the Spring 2020 Dr. Bhakta Rath and Sushama Rath Research Award.

The honor, which recognizes the Mines doctoral graduate whose thesis demonstrates the greatest potential for societal impact, was presented during Spring 2020 Graduate Commencement on May 8. During the virtual ceremony, Mines awarded a total of 52 doctoral and 203 master’s degrees.

Euser’s dissertation research focused on the rapid heat treatment of steel and the fundamental underpinnings that control embrittlement in steels.

“Steel is one of the most commonly utilized materials in the world, and Ginny’s transformational research challenges the ferrous metallurgy community’s long-standing beliefs about tempered martensite embrittlement (TME) – a phenomenon that results in the catastrophic failure of structural steel components,” said her advisors, John G. Speer, American Bureau of Shipping Endowed Chair for Metallurgical and Materials Engineering, and Amy Clarke, associate professor of metallurgical and materials engineering.

“Her results suggest that classic TME may be eliminated by short-time tempering treatments – a finding that’s already generating interest within the industrial heat treatment community and the DOD as a potential pathway to enable substantial improvements in strength-toughness properties, while simultaneously increasing production efficiency.”

Added Clarke: “Ginny’s academic and professional accomplishments to date reflect her technical competency, leadership and potential for future growth. It became clear to us early on that all we needed to do as advisors was point Ginny in the right direction and great science happens.”

ADDITIONAL GRADUATE AWARDS                                         

Emeritus Faculty Graduate Award: Chosen by emeritus faculty in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, this award is presented to an exceptional graduate student: Wijesuriya Arachchiage Wijesuriya

Three-Minute-Thesis (3MT) Competition: Three Minute Thesis (3MT®) celebrates research conducted by thesis-based graduate students around the world. The competition cultivates students’ academic, presentation and research communication skills and increases their capacity to effectively explain their research to a non-specialist audience.

• Rania Eldam Pommer, winner of the Mines 3MT competition
• Stephen Nelson Semmens, winner of the Colorado Statewide Three-Minute-Talk Competition, and runner-up of the 2019 Mines Three-Minute-Thesis Competition