A celebration of Michigan Tech MSE Professor Jiann-Yang (Jim) Hwang’s career of innovative contributions to the field of materials processing was the subject of an honorary symposium sponsored by the Extraction and Processing Division (EPD) at the 2021 TMS Annual Meeting.
Prof. Hwang was honored for his pioneering research on microwave-assisted metallurgy; for engineering and commercialization of environmental technologies to the electroplating industries; his outstanding innovations on mineral processing, and crucial achievements to the power, automobile, steel, and aluminum industries on materials recycling; his great contributions on hydrogen storage materials; significant developments on clean coal technologies; and last but not least, for excellent student mentoring.
The symposium and published proceedings, “Materials Engineering – From Ideas to Practice: An EPD Symposium in Honor of Jiann-Yang Hwang,” features 62 contributions from 9 countries. The TMS/Springer companion proceedings contains 29 peer-reviewed manuscripts dealing with novel developments in materials characterization and processing.
The symposium was organized by ten of Jim’s colleagues, including two Michigan Tech MSE alums: Bowen Li, who earned his PhD in Material Science and Engineering in 2008; and Zhiwei Peng, who earned his PhD in Metallurgy in 2012.
In the proceedings preface, Dr. Li notes that “Professor Jiann-Yang Hwang is an internationally well-known expert with a career of over 40 years in the fields of mineral processing, metallurgy, water treatment, microwave-assisted material process, hydrogen storage, and by-product recycling.
“He also has more than 30 years of continuous service to the communities of The Minerals, Metals & Materials Society (TMS), the Society for Mining, Metallurgy, and Exploration (SME), American Chemistry Society (ACS), and China Nonferrous Metal Society. His pioneering research achievements and leadership have already broadly influenced the society and industry internationally and have inspired young generations.”
“Jim has an international reputation for his innovative and impactful contributions to materials processing,” adds MSE Chair Steve Kampe. “He is well known and highly regarded for a wide range of creative solutions and technologies in the world of materials processing. It has been MSE’s and Michigan Tech’s good fortune that he has spent the majority of his illustrious career in Houghton.”
A portion of introductory preface to the proceedings, titled, “About the Honoree” is provided here. Professor Hwang’s narrative keynote presentation summarizing his career is in a self-authored contribution titled, “Materials Processing, from Ideas to Practice.” Both excerpts have been kindly provided with permission from TMS.