George A. Rossetti, Jr. Appointed MSE Associate Department Head
George A. Rossetti Jr, Associate Department Head and Associate Professor, Materials Science and Engineering
I am pleased to announce that Dr. George A. Rossetti, Jr. has accepted the appointment as Associate Department Head for Materials Science and Engineering. His appointment is effective immediately.
George received his BS in chemical engineering and MS in materials engineering from Worcester Polytechnic Institute, his PhD in solid-state science from The Pennsylvania State University, and he conducted postdoctoral research in solid-state chemistry at Princeton University. He is internationally recognized for his contributions to fundamental research into the thermodynamics, crystallography, phase transitions and structure–property relations in ferroelectrics and related electroactive ceramics. He is an author on ~75 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters, holds two U.S patents, and his work has been cited nearly 2000 times. His more recent published work includes cover, feature and invited articles for the Journal of the American Ceramic Society (2014), Applied Physics Reviews (2017), Energy Technology (2018) and Materials Research Society Bulletin (2018). He is a frequent invited or plenary speaker at major conferences devoted to electronic and functional ceramics.
In addition to his accomplishments in academia, George spent nearly a dozen years in industry. He began his career as research engineer with Norton Company (now Saint Gobain Corporation) where he developed a patented process for fabricating reaction-bonded silicon nitride ceramics and composites. In subsequent work as senior research engineer, he patented an environmentally friendly oxide material-lubricant system for abrasive machining, for which he was awarded the Saint-Gobain corporate research prize recognizing innovation across business units worldwide. Later he joined Continuum Control Corporation, a MIT spin-off startup, where as director of functional materials he oversaw $7M in DARPA S&T funding to develop piezoelectric fiber composites used in vibration suppression and active structural control systems for air, space and undersea vehicles. There he was also a key participant in the commercialization of piezoelectric technology for use in the Head Intelligence® line of actively damped sporting goods and the DirectLight® beam-steering all-optical switches.
Since joining UConn’s faculty some 10 years ago, George has received support for his work from ARO, DHS, ONR and many industrial partnerships. During his sabbatical in 2014-15, he was a visiting scientist at Technische Universität Darmstadt, where he continues an active collaboration. His teaching in the MSE department has included our core graduate courses covering crystallography and transport phenomena, as well as our undergraduate and graduate course offerings in ceramic materials.
George will continue to oversee the MSE graduate program, while also assisting with the many administrative, academic development and strategic planning activities ongoing in the department and which are increasingly important as we continue to grow and thrive.
Please join me in congratulating George as he assumes this new leadership role.
Sincerely,
Bryan Huey
Published: February 18, 2019
Categories: faculty, news, promotion
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