AIST Howe Memorial Lecture
Monday, May 7 • 8–9 a.m.

The AIST Howe Memorial Lecture will be held on Monday, May 7, 2007, in the Wabash Room at the Indiana Convention Center. The Howe Memorial Lecture was established in 1923 to honor Henry Marion Howe. Dr. Howe helped turn steelmaking from an art into a science with his gift of observation and deduction. He reviewed the experiments and breakthroughs of others and added to them with investigations of his own to establish metallography. The lecturer is selected in recognition of outstanding individual contributions to the science and practice of iron and steel metallurgy or metallography. The 2007 lecturer is Dr. Alan W. Cramb of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. His presentation will be entitled, “From Liquid to Solid: Key Issues in the Future of Steel Casting.”

2007 Howe Memorial Lecturer

Alan W. Cramb is the Dean of Engineering and the John A. Clark and Edward T. Crossan Professor of Engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.  In his role as Dean he is responsible for current and future directions in research and education for one of the leading engineering schools in the USA. Dr. Cramb joined Rensselaer in 2005.

Dr. Cramb received his Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania in 1979 and subsequently spent 7 years conducting research within the steel industry. In 1986 he joined Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) as an Assistant Professor and became the co-director of the Center for Iron and Steelmaking in 1990. He then helped the Center transition from a local to a fully international center with a worldwide membership. Dr. Cramb transitioned from Assistant to Associate to Full Professor and in 2000 he became Head of the Materials Science and Engineering Department where he was responsible for updating the undergraduate experience, developing the department’s leadership role, both locally and nationally, and ensuring that there was a strong interdisciplinary focus in the department’s research portfolio.

He is the author of over 180 publications and 2 patents and was the recipient of the AISI Medal in 1985 and 1986 and the Robert Woolston Hunt Award of the Iron and Steel Society in 1987. He was named an Iron and Steel Society Professor in 1992 and was awarded the Benjamin Richard Teare Award at CMU for excellence in engineering education in 1995. Alan was the recipient of the Posco Chair for Iron and Steelmaking at CMU in 1997 and was the President of the Iron and Steel Society in the year 2000. Alan was made a Fellow of the Iron and Steel Society in 2000 and named the John Elliott lecturer of TMS/ISS in 2002. In 2003 he gave the Carnegie lecture for the Pittsburgh branch of ASM and was awarded the Benjamin Fairless Award of AIME.  Alan became president of American Mining, Metallurgical and Materials Society in 2005. He was also chairman of the University Materials Council and a board member of ABET in 2005.

Alan’s research is focused on Eco-processing and issues related to solidification phenomena, especially during the casting of steels. He has graduated 16 Doctoral and 35 Masters students and has hosted more that 25 visiting international researchers within his group during his time at CMU. He has given more than 100 presentations worldwide and has taught short courses in Europe, South America and Asia on Solidification and Clean Steel Manufacture.