Letter from the Department Head

It is my pleasure to welcome you to the web site of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering (MSE) at the University of Tennessee (UT). This site provides you with information about the research, teaching, and service activities of our faculty and students, as well as contact information for all of our departmental staff.

The MSE department boasts roughly 25 faculty members, with approximately half of these faculty holding joint appointments with Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). ORNL is located approximately 30 miles west of the UT-Knoxville campus and is widely acknowledged as one of the premier materials research laboratories in the world.

If you are an undergraduate student and you are considering pursuing a graduate degree (M.S. or Ph.D.), please consider that, at UT, you will have advantages unsurpassed by any other U.S. university. Chief among these is the opportunity to perform your graduate studies in the best materials research facilities in the world and with the mentorship of highly respected, internationally-renowned materials scientists, both at UT and ORNL. You will be joining more than 90 students currently enrolled in either M.S. or Ph.D. programs in our department.

If you are currently an undergraduate student, or are planning to apply to university soon, please consider that if you enter our MSE undergraduate program, you will be in fine company, joining more than 70 students currently enrolled in the UT-MSE B.S. degree program. You will explore the wide world of engineering materials, from metals to ceramics to polymers. You will learn about the extraordinary properties of engineering materials, be they mechanical, optical, semi- or super-conducting, and about the wide range of advanced materials applications, from automobile to aerospace, to computer and electronic, and even to biomedical industries.

Some 35 years ago, I was an undergraduate student, majoring in physics and mathematics, when my mentor in a student research program at ORNL introduced me to the field of “materials science.” He told me that materials science was an up-and-coming technical field with excellent job opportunities in industry, academia, and at national laboratories. At that time, I made the decision to become a materials scientist, and I have never regretted my decision. I have since worked in industry, at a major national laboratory, and now in academia, and I can testify that materials science and engineering is an outstanding career choice. Materials science is truly one of the forefront disciplines of science and engineering, and impacts peoples’ lives in innumerable ways.

Please feel free to contact me if you have questions about our department. I look forward to meeting you and I pledge to help make your UT-MSE experience both memorable and rewarding.

Sincerely,

Kurt E. Sickafus
Alvin and Sally Beaman Professor and Head
The University of Tennessee
Materials Science & Engineering Department
435 Dougherty Engineering Building
Knoxville, TN 37996-2200

Tel: (865) 974-4858,  Fax: (865) 974-4115
E-mail:  kurt@utk.edu