World-renowned metallurgist Easo George has been named the newest member of the Governors Chair program, a joint project of the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

George, who will hold the title of Governor’s Chair for Advanced Alloy Theory and Development, becomes the 15th joint faculty member in the program, a cornerstone of the UT-ORNL partnership.

“I am honored to have been chosen for this position,” said George, who has decades of experience with both ORNL and UT’s Department of Materials Science and Engineering. “There is already tremendous synergy between ORNL and UT in advancing materials research, and I cannot wait to help build even more momentum.”

Having most recently served as the director of the Center for Interface Dominated High Performance Materials at Ruhr-University Bochum in Bochum, Germany, George has built a reputation as an authority on alloys and metals, and the behavior and testing of both.

Eight of the 15 Governor’s Chairs do research related to materials. That expertise adds to a growing strength in materials research for both UT and ORNL—a collaboration that has resulted in several successful jointly operated centers devoted to research of materials along with the development of IACMI–The Composites Institute.

“The appointment of Dr. George as our newest Governor’s Chair strengthens the already impressive work we and ORNL are doing in the realm of the structure of materials, including alloys,” said Wayne Davis, dean of UT’s Tickle College of Engineering. “It also serves to highlight the connection between our two institutions and the research we are capable of conducting through collaboration.”

Jeremy Busby, director of ORNL’s Materials Science and Technology Division, noted that George’s appointment also will help advance ORNL’s leadership in alloy development theory, impacting innovations in everything from vehicles to nuclear reactors.