![\"Xue](\"https:\/\/tickle.utk.edu\/mse\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2024\/01\/XueWang_2023-1-768x576-1.jpg\")
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Dr. Xue Wang, an alumna of Prof. Yanfei Gao\u2019s research group in the Department of Materials Science & Engineering at the University of Tennessee, has been awarded the Acta Student Award for her paper \u201cDetermination of the friction stir welding window from the solid-state-bonding mechanics under severe thermomechanical conditions\u201d, published in Materialia in 2022. Each Acta Materialia journal recognizes one student paper per year. Dr. Wang\u2019s work is the first paper to develop a bonding mechanism for this solid-state additive manufacturing technique. Although Dr. Wang completed her PhD work in Fall, 2020, it is not unusual for some papers from a dissertation to be published one or two years after the defense. Authors who were students at the time the paper was written remain eligible for the \u201cActa Student Award\u201d even after graduation. Dr. Wang previously won the Joseph Spruiell award for Excellence in Research in the MSE department in 2021. After a brief stint as a post-doctoral researcher at Penn State, she now works at Corning Inc. as a process modeling engineer. She will receive the recognition, which comes with a cash award, at the TMS 2024 Meeting in Orlando, Florida. Congratulations to Dr. Xue Wang.<\/p>\n