EPMA Fellowship Award winners named at World PM2022 congress
November 1, 2022
The European Powder Metallurgy Association (EPMA) announced the recipients of its annual Fellowship Award during a reception at this year’s World PM Congress & Exhibition, which took place in Lyon, France, from October 9-13. The EPMA Fellowship Award recognises individuals in the scientific and/or academic community for significant contributions to the development of the PM industry, and both Prof Luis M Llanes Pitarch and Prof Dr-ing Thomas Weissgärber received the honour.
Prof Luis M Llanes Pitarch
Born in 1965, Prof Llanes Pitarch holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Universidad Simón Bolívar, Venezuela, as well as a PhD degree from University of Pennsylvania, USA. Since 1992 he has been affiliated with Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC), where he became a Full Professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering in 2003.
He has been chairman of his department, Dean of the Barcelona-East School of Engineering (EEBE) and Director of Fundació Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC School). Prof Llanes Pitarch has concentrated on the field of mechanical behaviour of metallic, ceramic and composite materials, especially addressing structural integrity (fracture, fatigue and contact load response), micromechanics and reliability under service-like conditions.
In the last two decades, his efforts have focused on microstructural design optimisation of hard materials (hardmetals, cermets, PCD and PcBN), through mechanical integrity assessment along a wide range of length scales. Prof Llanes Pitarch is co-author of more than 150 papers published in top journals in these fields. In addition, he has a track-record of technology transfer and consultancy with hard materials industries. He is co-chair of EPMA’s European Hard Materials Group, Associated Editor of the International Journal of Refractory Metals and Hard Materials, and a member of the Editorial Board of Ceramics International. Prof Llanes Pitarch has been co-chairman of the last five International Conferences on the Science of Hard Materials (ICSHM).
Prof Dr-ing Thomas Weissgärber
Prof Thomas Weissgärber is one of the directors of Fraunhofer IFAM and heads the Dresden facility. He also holds a professorship in Powder Metallurgy at Technische Universität Dresden. Born in 1969, Prof Weissgärber studied materials science at the Technical University Dresden and received his PhD in Powder Metallurgy in 1997.
For twenty-five years, Prof Weissgärber has been working in the field of applied research in Powder Metallurgy. His research focus lies on metallic lightweight materials, composite materials, high temperature materials, functional materials as well as materials for the energy sector. A main topic of his work is the development of highly thermally conductive and expansion-matched composites for applications in electronics.
In addition to concepts for new high-temperature materials, he is also involved in the development of aluminium sintering in particular. The development of highly porous materials for chemical processes and energy storage is a further part of the research activities. In the future, the topics will be specifically expanded to include soft magnetic materials and complex concentrated alloys. In addition to classic Powder Metallurgy technologies, Prof Weissgärber is active in the field of Additive Manufacturing.
