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Acta Materialia 61 (2013) 5910–5912

Press Release

2014 Acta Materialia, Inc. Materials and Society Award

The winner of the 2014 Acta Materialia, Inc. Materialsand Society Award (formerly the J. Herbert HollomonAward) is Anson Marston Distinguished Professor KarlA. Gschneidner, Jr., of the Department of MaterialsScience and Engineering, Iowa State University. He is alsoa Senior Metallurgist at the Department of Energy’s(DOE) Ames Laboratory and Chief Scientist of DOE’snewest Energy Innovation Hub - the Critical MaterialsInstitute. Karl has been working on rare earths since hisgraduate student days when he started working with hismentor Distinguished Professor Frank H. Spedding,known as the “father of rare earths,” and Dr. Adrian H.Daane in 1952 when he started preparing high purity rareearth metals and studied the rare earth carbides. Notableachievements were (1) the preparation of a one kilogramingot of gadolinium metal (previously the largest Gd metalsample weighed less than 15 grams) and (2) discovery of 26new rare earth carbide compounds belonging to the R2C,R2C3, and RC2 families of compounds. The R2C familywas unknown until discovered by Gschneidner.

After graduating from Iowa State University he joinedthe plutonium physical metallurgy group at the Los Ala-mos National Laboratory, and, in addition to workingon delta-stabilized plutonium (d-Pu) alloys, he studied the

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.actamat.2013.08.009

temperature-pressure phase diagram of cerium metal. Theformer study led to a model for predicting which elementswould stabilize the d-Pu phase and those which would not.The cerium research opened the door for a lifetime study ofmixed valence cerium metal and its intermetallic com-pounds and alloys.

In 1963 Gschneidner returned to Iowa State Universityas an Associate Professor, taking over the metallurgygroup led by one of his former mentors, Prof. Adrian H.Daane. During these formative years (1952–1963)Gschneidner always had an interest in promoting rareearth science and technology to other scientists and thegeneral public. In 1964 he was commissioned to write abooklet for the layman on the rare earths as part of theU.S. Atomic Energy Commission’s “Understanding theAtom” series. The 42 page booklet “The Rare Earths –The Fraternal Fifteen” was reprinted three times.

Gschneidner’s major interactions with the internationalrare earth community and the general public started in Jan-uary 1966 when he established the Rare-earth InformationCenter (RIC) and served as its director for 30 years, whenhe turned RIC over to a younger colleague, Dr. R.W. (Bill)McCallum. The Information Center published a quarterlynewsletter, RIC News, which featured short, readable

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narratives on interesting and exciting articles excepted frompublished scientific, technical articles and reviews thatappeared in peer reviewed journals; news releases from var-ious industrial, non-profit and academic sources; articlesand photographs from various research groups aroundthe world; and summaries and photographs from rare earthand related technical and scientific conferences. In addi-tion, the Information Center had a vast searchable techni-cal database of journal articles, books, pamphlets,technical reports, theses, and proceedings. RIC alsoanswered well over 100 technical inquiries per year andoccasionally published special reports for organizationson a cost recovery basis. Most of the financial supportfor RIC came from Iowa State University and world-wideindustrial organizations, and from a few individuals. RICservices were made available at no cost, and at one timeits publications had about 12,000 subscribers.

In March 1988 RIC launched a monthly publication,RIC Insight, which was supplied to the benefactors ofRIC with the latest breakthrough news, which would reachthese subscribers about three months before the narrativeappeared in the quarterly RIC News. Furthermore, someof the articles published in RIC Insight never saw daylightin the RIC News, and in addition there were editorial com-ments that were appropriate for the industrial communityand not of interest to the average RIC News readers.

In another major undertaking, Gschneidner establisheda successful series of handbooks on rare earth materials,co-founded with Professor LeRoy Eyring of Arizona StateUniversity, Tempe, Arizona. Volume 1 was published in1978 and the series, the HANDBOOK ON THE PHYSICSAND CHEMISTRY OF RARE EARTHS, still flourishestoday with volume 44 currently in press. Gschneidnerserved as the senior editor until 2011 (of volume 41) whenhe turned over the editorship to Prof. Jean-ClaudeG. Biinzli of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology,Lausanne and Distinguished Professor Vitalij K. Pecharskyof Iowa State University. These volumes cover all aspectsof rare earth science and technology, and occasionally havespecial volumes dedicated to a single topic, such as metals,alloys and intermetallics, non-metallic compounds (2volumes), high energy spectroscopy, lanthanides andactinides (3 volumes), catalysis, high temperature super-conductors (2 volumes), and optical spectroscopy. Theaverage HANDBOOK volume is about 400 pages long,and over 250 chapters have been published.

Gschneidner was a member of the Acta Materialia, Inc.Board of Governors for thirteen years, including ten yearsas the Chairman of the Board, the longest serving governorof the Board. During his term, Acta Materialia, Inc. suc-cessfully launched Acta Biomaterialia, considered to bethe leading journal in the biomaterials field.

In addition to his service to Acta Materialia, Inc.Gschneidner served on many other scientific and technicalcommittees, including the U.S. Rare Earth ResearchConferences for over 50 years.

Gschneidner was the co-discoverer with DistinguishedProfessor Vitalij K. Pecharsky of the giant magnetocaloriceffect in 1997. This discovery had a tremendous impact notonly on science but through commercial magnetic coolingdevices, it will also improve the quality of life to just abouteveryone on this planet. Today several companies fromEurope to China to Japan to the USA are seeking to com-mercialize magnetic cooling technology. When conven-tional refrigeration is gradually replaced by its magneticsuccessor, large energy savings and environmental benefitswill follow.

In 2010 and 2011, Gschneidner’s testimony before theU.S. House of Representatives, Committee on Science,Space and Technology was quite instrumental in Congressproviding funds for the Department of Energy to set up anew Energy Innovation Hub on Energy Critical Materials.Fortunately, the Ames Laboratory’s consortium with threeother national DOE laboratories, seven universities andseven industrial firms won the competition to operate theCritical Minerals Institute (CMI) to provide better routesto: (1) diversifying rare earth supplies, (2) developing sub-stitutes for and reducing the usage of rare earths, (3) reus-ing and recycling rare earth materials, and (4) crosscuttingscientific and technological research for exploring suchissues as environmental and supply chain impacts, and toassist the other three focus areas to reach their milestonesand ultimate goals. The CMI began operation in April2013, and it is headed by Professor Alexander H. King.Gschneidner was appointed the Chief Scientist of the CMI.

Most of the above description concerns Gschneidner’scontributions to “Society.” His scientific achievementshave been well recognized and are briefly summarizedbelow.

Gschneidner received a B.S. degree from the Universityof Detroit in 1952 and his Ph.D. from Iowa State Univer-sity in 1957. He was at the Los Alamos National Labora-tory from 1957 to 1963 and joined the faculty of theDepartment of Metallurgy at Iowa State University in1963.

Gschneidner is considered the world’s foremost author-ity of rare earth science, technology, application and utili-zation, and is known as “Mr. Rare Earths.” He haspublished over 510 papers in peer reviewed journals, anadditional 173 chapters in books, conference proceedings,and reports; 204 phase diagram evaluations; holds 15patents (plus 4 pending); and has given 324 invitedpresentations.

Gschneidner was elected to the National Academy ofEngineering in 2007 for “contributions to the science andtechnology of rare-earth materials,” and has received over25 awards and honors for these efforts. These include: the

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Acta Materialia Gold Medal in 2008; the 1978 WilliamHume-Rothery Award of TMS; a Distinguished Professor-ship at Iowa State University (ISU) in 1979; the 1989 Bur-lington Northern Award for Excellence in Research fromISU; the 1991 Frank H. Spedding award from the RareEarth Research Conferences; the 1997 David R. BoylanEminent Faculty Award in Research, College of Engineer-ing, ISU; the Science Alumnus of the Year 2000 Awardfrom the University of Detroit Mercy. Gschneidner wasalso elected a Fellow in five professional societies: TMSand ASM International, both in 1990; APS in 2002; andMRS and AAAS both in 2011. Gschneidner is also an hon-orary member of the MRS-India, 1983; the European RareEarth and Actinide Society, 1998; and the MetallurgicalSociety of Japan, 2001, and a lifetime member of TMSand ASM International.

Mr. Rare Earths usually rides a bike to work, weatherpermitting, each day -normally a total of 12 miles if he goes

home for lunch, logging in about 2000 miles a year. Hisfavorite hobby is gardening – spending many hours onweekends cultivating strawberries, various fruit trees, vege-tables (especially tomatoes and peppers), and flowers,including roses and begonias.

The Acta Materialia, Inc. Award in Materials andSociety was established in memory of Dr. J. Herbert Hol-lomon and his dedication to promoting positive social con-sequences of science and technology that have had a majorimpact on society. The Award consists of a glass sculpture,an inscribed certificate, and a cash honorarium.

Gschneidner was selected as the 2014 awardee by aninternational panel of judges appointed by the Board ofGovernors of Acta Materialia, Inc. and will receive thisprestigious award in February 2014 during the TMS Springmeeting in San Diego, CA.