Richard D. Sisson Jr., George F. Fuller Professor of Mechanical Engineering at WPI and director of the university's Manufacturing and Materials Engineering programs, has been elected president of the ASM Heat Treating Society (HTS).
WORCESTER, Mass. – Richard D. Sisson Jr., George F. Fuller Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) and director of the university's Manufacturing and Materials Engineering programs, has been elected president of the ASM Heat Treating Society (HTS), an affiliate society of ASM International, The Materials Information Society.
A fellow and past trustee of ASM International, Sisson will serve a two-year term as president of HTS, the world's leading network of captive and commercial heat treaters, equipment manufacturers, researchers, and technicians. With roots dating back to 1913, when ASM was founded as the Steel Treaters Club, HTS was organized in 1994 to serve as a clearinghouse for heat treating information, which is distributed through conferences, seminars, books, journals, and electronic media.
"As president, I will focus on opportunities for lifelong learning, one of the most important strategic issues for our membership," Sisson said during the recent HTS General Membership Meeting in Detroit. "I'm looking forward to working with our volunteer leaders, our committees, and our members to make HTS a more vital resource for the worldwide heat treating community."
Sisson's contributions to the literature in materials science and engineering over the course of nearly three decades at WPI, including nearly 200 technical articles on materials process modeling and control, hydrogen embrittlement of steels, and environmental effects on metals and ceramics, have ranked him among the top five percent of scholars in his field. His work, which has received more than $7 million in external support, has earned him significant honors, including induction into the Academy of Engineering Excellence at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech).
Sisson has mentored numerous undergraduates and graduate students in the classroom and as a project advisor. His skill as an educator has been recognized by WPI, which presented him with the Board of Trustees' Award for Outstanding Teaching in 1987 and the inaugural Chairman's Exemplary Faculty Prize in 2007. He received his B.S. in metallurgical engineering from Virginia Tech, and his M.S. and Ph.D. from Purdue University.
WPI is home to the nation's premier research center in metal heat treating, the Center for Heat Treating Excellence (CHTE). Part of the university's Metal Processing Industry, the largest industry-university alliance in North America, CHTE is a consortium of companies and university researchers established to address the research needs of the $20 billion-a-year heat-treating industry. CHTE and the ASM Heat Treat Society collaborated to establish the Heat Treat Global Database, an authoritative collection of heat treating research reports, which is made available to materials scientists and engineers worldwide.
