News Article

IOWA STATE'S KARL A. GSCHNEIDNER ELECTED TO NATIONAL ACADEMY OF ENGINEERING

 

The National Academy of Engineering today announced the election of Karl A. Gschneidner, Jr. as a member. Gschneidner is Anson Marston Distinguished Professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering and a senior scientist at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Ames Laboratory on the Iowa State campus. One of 64 members and 9 foreign associates elected this year, Gschneidner was cited “for contributions to the science and technology of rare-earth materials.”

The National Academies, which include the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, the Institute of Medicine, and the National Research Council, bring together committees of experts from all scientific and technological areas to address critical national issues and give advice to the federal government and the public. Election to the National Academy of Engineering is among the highest professional distinctions accorded to an engineer. 

According to the academy’s web site, membership honors those who have made outstanding contributions to "engineering research, practice, or education, including, where appropriate, significant contributions to the engineering literature," and to the "pioneering of new and developing fields of technology, making major advancements in traditional fields of engineering, or developing/implementing innovative approaches to engineering education."

“Karl Gschneidner’s election as a fellow of the academy is welcome news to all who have long recognized the value of his work in rare earth metals,” said Mark J. Kushner, dean of the College of Engineering at Iowa State. “It’s an honor that is both eminently well-deserved and long overdue.”

Gschneidner joins Anson Marston Distinguished Professor R. Bruce Thompson and Professor Dan Shechtman as Iowa State’s representatives in the National Academy of Engineering. Both Shechtman and Thompson, who is director of the Center for Nondestructive Evaluation, also hold appointments in the department of Materials Science and Engineering.

Gschneidner, who received his Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry from Iowa State in 1957, is acknowledged as one of the world’s foremost authorities in the physical metallurgy and thermal and electrical behaviors of rare earth materials, a group of chemically similar metals naturally occurring in the earth’s crust. His work lately has taken him into the field of magnetic refrigeration, developing technologies that have the potential for significant energy savings with fewer environmental problems than existing refrigeration systems.

A member of the Iowa State faculty since 1963, Gschneidner has hundreds of refereed journal publications and presentations to leading scientific gatherings worldwide to his credit. Holder of more than a dozen patents either singly or with collaborators, he has been honored with numerous awards by governmental, professional, and industrial bodies, including recognition for his Ames Lab team’s research in magnetic refrigeration by the U.S. Department of Energy in 1997 and with an Innovative Housing Technology Award in 2003.

In addition to the National Academy of Engineering, Gschneidner is also a Fellow of the American Society for Materials, The Minerals, Metals and Materials Society, and the American Physical Society. In 2005, he was honored for 53 years of outstanding contributions to his field with a symposium at Iowa State that was attended by some of the world’s leading experts in rare earth materials, many of them his former students or collaborators. He maintains an active research program with Ames Laboratory.



For further reading, visit “Gschneidner at 75: Still Cool (and wit h a Certain Magnetism)” from the spring 2006 issue of Innovate.

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