Mohamed Honored with TMS Achievement Award

Mohamed's materials research earned him the TMS Oleg D. Sherby Award.

Oct. 31, 2019 - Farghalli A. Mohamed, professor emeritus in the Samueli School Department of Materials Science and Engineering, has been selected as the 2020 recipient of the TMS Oleg D. Sherby Award.

The award from TMS – The Minerals, Metals & Materials Society – recognizes an individual or small group of collaborators who has/have made significant contributions to the understanding of the behavior of materials at high temperatures. Mohamed’s research focuses on the mechanical behavior of engineering materials like metals, composites and ceramics; the correlation between behavior and microstructure; creep (deformation under high temperature or loads) and superplasticity (the state in which solid crystalline material is deformed well beyond its usual breaking point); and the mechanisms responsible for strengthening and fracture. He is particularly interested in the relationship between microstructures and the mechanical properties of materials at very high temperatures.

The Sherby Award cites Mohamed’s “pioneering contributions in the areas of creep and superplasticity.”

Materials Science and Engineering Professor Jim Earthman nominated Mohamed, who is known around campus as FAM, for the award. “What is particularly impressive about Prof. Farghalli Mohamed’s accomplishments is his ability to perform research of exceptional quality while creating nearly singlehandedly a materials science and engineering program that has become a department at UCI. In doing so, he unselfishly mentored a large number of junior faculty who are now full professors,” Earthman said. “We have been very fortunate to have him as a colleague.”

Formal presentation of the award, which includes a $5,000 honorarium, will take place during the 149thTMS annual meeting in San Diego next February.

- Anna Lynn Spitzer