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Lawrence Livermore scientist installed president of Minerals, Metals and Materials Society

turchi (Download Image) Patrice Turchi, a Distinguished Member of the Technical Staff at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, addresses The Minerals, Metals & Materials Society during the organization’s annual meeting in March. Turchi aims to advance the society at the international level as 2015 president.

Patrice Turchi of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory was recently installed as the 2015 president of The Minerals, Metals & Materials Society (TMS) during the organization’s annual meeting in March.

Turchi, who is group leader of the LLNL Material Science Division’s Advanced Metallurgical Science and Engineering group, has been an active member of TMS for more than 25 years. He has served on the TMS board of directors as chair of the Electronic, Magnetic & Photonic Materials Division (now the Functional Materials Division). He served as vice president of the society in 2014.

As president, Turchi said he has plans to advance TMS at the international level through increased cooperation with other North and South American materials societies, at the U.S. level by working to attract students to materials science and engineering, and at the society level by encouraging TMS committee and division leaders to think about the work that they do in terms of the society’s five strategic goals: diversity and inclusion; increased industrial engagement; international outreach; energy and sustainability; and materials and manufacturing.

"TMS presidents represent the rank-and-file members who, like myself, started to give time as volunteers, and who recognized over the years that empowering TMS to meet the current and future needs of its membership also could help better advance our profession," Turchi said. "I am honored to be entrusted with the responsibility."

Turchi received a Ph.D. in solid-state physics and a Ph.D. in materials science from the University of Paris VI, France, after obtaining his engineering diploma from the National Superior School of Chemistry of Paris. He was a professor at the University of Paris VI for 11 years, a visiting scientist at the University of California, Berkeley, for one year and has been at LLNL for more than 28 years.

His research interests encompass computational materials science and condensed matter physics with an emphasis on alloy theory from first-principles electronic structure, and stability and physical properties of complex assemblies. Turchi has given more than 310 presentations, authored or co-authored more than 295 publications, sits on the review boards of several scientific journals and has received several professional honors and awards.

Turchi has chaired TMS’s Alloy Phases Committee and various administrative committees. He also has been a member of several TMS technical advisory groups, a contributor to several recent TMS reports, and organizer of 15 TMS and three Materials Research Society symposia, two NATO-Advanced Study Institutes and one NATO-Advanced Research Workshop. Turchi is co-founder of the International Alloy Conference, chair of the Alloy Phase Diagram Committee at ASM International and a member of the Alloy Phase Diagram International Commission.