Every year, three early/mid-career women and minority professionals are selected for the Engineering Ceramics Division’s Jubilee Global Diversity Award and are invited to present at the International Conference and Exposition on Advanced Ceramics and Composites (ICACC) in Daytona Beach, FL (annual meeting of the Division). The awardees are encouraged to mentor students and promote society related activities at their institutions.
This award is intended to recognize exceptional early- to mid-career professionals who are women and/or underrepresented minorities (i.e. based on race, ethnicity, nationality and/or geographic location) in the area of ceramic science and engineering.
Criteria:
1) Contributions to the field of ceramic science and engineering
2) Demonstrated commitment to mentoring students and young professionals
3) Promotion of the society and its related activities in the broader community
The nominee must be 45 years old or younger at the time of the award presentation (January 1st of the Award Year) and a member of The American Ceramic Society and Engineering Ceramics Division. However, the award committee can consider special situations (extended time away due to family and health reasons, military service, etc.) and consider waiving the age requirements for exceptional candidates in special cases.
Nomination Process
Nominations can be made by any individual or group that is a member of ACerS. Self-nominations are allowed and encouraged. A one page nomination letter along with a brief CV (up to 3 pages) highlighting the nominee’s contributions listed in the criteria above are required.
Three awards are given each year including a certificate, complimentary registration to ICACC, and a $1,000 honorarium to be presented during the plenary session at ICACC. The awardees are invited to present at ICACC.
Contact
Submit nominations to: ECD Trustee Michael Halbig at michael.c.halbig@nasa.gov
Award Winners
Chiharu Tokoro
Chiharu Tokoro, Professor, Dr. of Engineering, Waseda University/the University of Tokyo, Japan
Dr. Tokoro is received her PhD from the University of Tokyo, Graduate School of Engineering. Currently, she is a professor at Waseda university and the University of Tokyo. Her research is focused on advanced separation technologies for resource circulation, especially mineral processing, chemical engineering, and powder processing for waste/wastewater treatment and recycling. She is the author of 16 books, over 150 articles, and more than 20 inventions. She is also a member of the Science Council of Japan (SCJ) and the Engineering Academy of Japan (EAJ). She has also fulfilled her duty as a Director or a leading position of several academic societies in Japan.
Yan Li
Dr. Yan Li is currently an Assistant Professor in Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth College. Her primary research interests are in the area of mechanics of advanced materials, involving multiscale/multiphysics modelling, integrated computational/experimental approaches for next generation material design, and application of material science and solid mechanics in advanced manufacturing and biomedical applications. She is the recipient of ASME ORR Early Career Award and NH EPSCorR Pilot Award in 2020, Best Paper Award of the 8th International Conference on Computational Methods in 2018, WAC Teaching Writing Fellow at Cal State Long Beach in 2017, Professors around the world at Cal State Long Beach in 2016, and multiple NSF travel awards for leadership and career development.
Sonia Fiorilli
Sonia Fiorilli graduated in Industrial Chemistry at Università di Torino and took her PhD in Materials Science and Technology at Politecnico di Torino in 2005. She is an Associate Professor of Fundamentals of Chemical Technology at Politecnico di Torino.
Her research interests deal with the synthesis of ceramics and composites mainly for environmental, energy-related, and biomedical applications. More recently her activity has focused on the development of formulations for 3D printing and electrospinning of micro- nano composite scaffolds for highly targeted therapies in tissue regeneration.
She was visiting researcher at the School of Chemistry of St. Andrew (Scotland), at Ecole Nationale Supérior de Chemie, Montpellier, France, at the Green Chemistry Centre of Excellence, University of York (UK) and visiting Professor at the University di Laval (Quebec), Canada.
She is supervising a research group of PhD students and post-doc researchers and is a member of the board of the Ph.D. School of Materials Science and Technology at the Politecnico di Torino.
She is/was involved in several EU and national projects as Principal investigator or scientific responsible for her research unit.
She has co-authored 114 papers in high-impact peer-reviewed journals (H index = 33).