Leaders in PM industry, science and academia recognised at Euro PM2017
October 9, 2017

Professor Alberto Molinari welcomes delegates to the Plenary Session of Euro PM2017
The Euro PM2017 Congress & Exhibition took place in Milan, Italy, October 1-5, 2017. Organised and sponsored by the EPMA, the event attracted over 1000 participants, including delegates, authors and exhibitors from forty-two countries. According to the EPMA, over two-hundred oral and poster presentations were given during the five-day event.
At the opening Plenary Session on October 2, the EPMA presented its annual Distinguished Service Award and the first EPMA Fellowship Awards, a new award designed to recognise significant contributions to Powder Metallurgy from the scientific and academic community.
EPMA Distinguished Service Award
The EPMA’s Distinguished Service Awards are presented in recognition of individuals who make an outstanding contribution to the European PM industry over a number of years. Recipients are selected by the EPMA Council and receive their award at the association’s annual congress.
This year, the EPMA presented its Distinguished Service Award to Thomas Lambrecht, Dorst Technologies, Germany. Lambrecht studied Chemical Engineering at Munich Technical University from 1978-1984, after which time he began as Project Engineer at a Munich-based company designing and realising ceramic plants globally.
Lambrecht joined Dorst Technologies in 1995 as a Sales Manager. Since 2000, he has been employed as the company’s Managing Director.
EPMA Fellowship Awards
The EPMA’s inaugural Fellowship Awards were made to:
Prof Dr-Ing Christoph Broeckmann, RWTH Aachen University, Germany
Professor Doctor Ingenieur Christoph Broeckmann began his career at Ruhr-University Bochum, Germany, studying Mechanical Engineering before going on to work at the Institute of Materials Science at Bochum for ten years.
Shortly after receiving his PhD for a thesis on the fracture of carbide rich steels, he began work at Köppern GmbH & Co. KG, before being appointed Managing Director at Köppern Entwicklungs GmbH. In 2008, he joined RWTH Aachen University as a professor and, in 2009, was made Head of the Institute for Materials Application in Mechanical Engineering (IWM).
Prof Alberto Molinari, University of Trento, Italy
Professor Alberto Molinaro gained his PhD in Metallurgical Engineering from the University of Torino, Italy, and teaches as a Professor at the University of Trento. He was made Honoris Causa PhD by the University Carlos III, Madrid, in 2016.
Molinari is Chairman of the EPMI, the European Powder Metallurgy Institute of the EPMA. At Euro PM2017, he served as Congress Chair alongside Ing. Matteo Federici. He was Chairman of the 2010 PM World Congress.
Prof José Manuel Torralba, Universidad Carlos III Madrid, Spain
Professor Doctor José Manuel Torralba is the Director-General for Universities and Research of Madrid Regional Government. He has published more than 450 scientific papers and supervised twenty-six PhD theses and eighty Diploma theses.
Torralba has participated in more than seventy international scientific committees of International Conferences, being Chairman of seven of them and involved in thirty-five competitive projects
EuroHM Lifetime Service Award

Dr Leo Prakash (right) presents Kenneth J A Brookes (left) with EuroHM’s special Lifetime Service Award
During the EuroHM Open Meeting, October 3, the EPMA’s working group for hardmetals presented a special ‘Lifetime Service Award in the Hardmetal Industry’ to Kenneth J A Brookes, EurIng, FIMMM, CEng, of International Carbide Data.
Brookes, whose sixty-plus-year career began at Tungsten Electric Company in 1951, has published multiple books on hardmetals and consults globally on the hardmetals industry.
