News

International role for Swinburne Professor

Swinburne’s Professor Chris Berndt has been nominated Vice President of a prestigious international professional body.

ASM International, a US-based society established in 1913 represents 36,000 members in the materials science field worldwide.

Berndt will take on the role of Vice President of the organisation for twelve months in October this year when his appointment is ratified at the 2010 Annual General Meeting.

He will then go on to become President of ASM International in 2011-2012.

Berndt is the Director of the Industrial Research Institute Swinburne (IRIS) and was an ASM trustee from 2005-2008.

“This nomination is a great honour for Professor Berndt,” said Professor John Beynon, Dean of the Faculty of Engineering and Industrial Sciences at Swinburne. “This is only the second time in the history of ASM International that a non US-based member has been nominated for the position of Vice-President.”

According to ASM International’s constitution, after a one year term, the Vice President automatically becomes President of the organisation.

Berndt has more than 30 years experience in the materials engineering field, specialising in the area of thermal spray coatings.

“This honour is a shared one because of the strong support of many colleagues around the globe and especially that of Swinburne University,” he said.

Berndt has undertaken several fellowships in the USA, including a two year stint at NASA-Lewis Research Centre, and was appointed professor at Stony Brook University in New York in 1995, where he remains an Adjunct Professor.

In early 2005, he returned to Australia as the founding Professor of Surface and Interface Engineering at James Cook University in Queensland. He was appointed the founding Professor of Surface Science and Interface Engineering at Swinburne University of Technology in late 2007 and became Director of IRIS in March 2008.

Berndt is a member of 13 professional societies in the materials, mechanical, manufacturing and biomedical fields. He was inducted into the Thermal Spray Hall of Fame in 2007.

The Defence Materials Technology Centre extends sincere congratulations to Prof. Berndt, who was instrumental in the inception of the Defence Materials Technology Centre and formerly the Program Manager of DMTC’s Maritime Program. The Swinburne University of Technology is a Core Participant of DMTC.

ASM International is a society dedicated to serving the materials science and engineering profession. Through its worldwide network, ASM provides authoritative information and knowledge on materials and processes, from the structural to the nanoscale.