Albuquerque, N.M. — Julia Phillips, director of Nuclear Weapons Science and Technology Programs at Sandia National Laboratories, and Sandia researcher Neville Moody have been named Fellows in the Materials Research Society (MRS).
The title of Fellow honors MRS members for their research accomplishments and contributions to materials research worldwide. The maximum number of new Fellow appointments each year is limited to 0.2 percent of the society’s current membership. Twenty-nine Fellows were named this year.
Phillips was honored “in recognition of research accomplishments in thin-film heteroepitaxy, national/international leadership in materials science and contributions to help shape the MRS organization,” in a paragraph released by the Society.
Moody was similarly mentioned “for outstanding research characterizing the deformation and fracture of materials, for service shaping the quality of professional society activities, and for mentoring generations of students, professors and researchers.”
Phillips joined Sandia as a manager of a materials science organization in 1995. Between 2001 and early 2010 she served as director of Sandia’s Physical, Chemical and Nano Sciences Center. The center, with an annual budget of nearly $50 million, performs fundamental research and technology development supporting the breadth of Sandia’s national security mission in nanoscience and nanotechnology, compound semiconductors, radiation effects and remote sensing. Areas of particular emphasis that emerged during her tenure include the science and technology of solid-state lighting (including a DOE Energy Frontier Research Center focused on inorganic solid-state lighting), nanoscience (including the DOE Center for Integrated Nanotechnologies), and quantum computing. Her concurrent duties at Sandia included overall leadership of the Laboratory’s Office of Science program (nearly $90 million in FY2009), service on the board of directors for the Labs’ Energy, Resources and Nonproliferation business area, and chairing both the Laboratory Nanomaterials Safety Committee and the Technical Library Board.
Prior to coming to Sandia, Phillips spent 14 years at AT&T Bell Laboratories as a staff member and technical manager. At Bell Labs, her research was in the areas of epitaxial metallic and insulating films on semiconductors, high temperature superconducting, ferroelectric and magnetic oxide thin films, and novel transparent conducing materials.
Phillips was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 2004 and to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2005. She is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. She received the 2008 George E. Pake Prize for outstanding achievements in physics research combined with major success as a manager of research or development.
Moody earned his Ph.D. in materials science from the University of Minnesota in 1981. After joining Sandia that same year, his research focused on the determination of hydrogen effects on deformation and fracture in titanium, stainless steels and superalloys, employing experimental testing, modeling and simulation techniques. For the past 15 years his research has included the study of deformation and fracture on the submicron scale in thin films and small volumes.
Moody has given more than 100 invited presentations and authored or co-authored more than 170 publications, including invited reviews and a chapter in the encyclopedia on Comprehensive Structural Integrity. He has co-organized three International Conferences on Hydrogen Effects in Materials, three regional materials and welding technology conferences, numerous Materials, Metals & Materials Society (TMS) and MRS symposia on hydrogen effects, fracture of titanium alloys and nanomechanical behavior of materials. He also cochaired the 2005 MRS Spring Meeting in San Francisco.
He is on the board of review for Metallurgical and Materials Transactions and is an active member of several committees of MRS and TMS. He is also a fellow of ASM International.