Wulff Lecture

Perspectives on the UN International Year of Glass

The Wulff Lecture is an introductory, general audience, entertaining lecture that aims to educate, inspire, and encourage MIT undergraduates to take up study of materials science and engineering and related fields. The Lecture honors the late Professor John Wulff, a skilled, provocative, and entertaining teacher who conceived of a new approach to teaching general chemistry and inaugurated the popular first-year subject 3.091 Introduction to Solid State Chemistry

Abstract:
Glass has proven to be one of the most important materials enabling the development of modern human civilization.  Owing to this indelible impact of glass on society, the United Nations has formally declared 2022 to be the International Year of Glass.  The positive influence of glass on our world continues to grow as new glass products and processes are developed to address global challenges in energy, the environment, healthcare, information and communication technology, and more.  In this presentation, I will discuss some future advances in glass science and technology that promise to address many of these grand challenges.  I hope that these new applications of glass will inspire students to pursue dedicated research in these areas to invent the new materials and processes required to improve the quality of life for all of humanity.

Biography: 
Dr. John C. Mauro is Dorothy Pate Enright Professor and Associate Head for Graduate Education in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at Pennsylvania State University.  John earned a B.S. in Glass Engineering Science (2001), B.A. in Computer Science (2001), and Ph.D. in Glass Science (2006), all from Alfred University.  He joined Corning Incorporated in 1999 and served in multiple roles there, including Senior Research Manager of the Glass Research department.  John is the inventor or co-inventor of several new glass compositions for Corning, including Corning Gorilla® Glass products.  John joined the faculty at Penn State in 2017 and is currently a world-recognized expert in fundamental and applied glass science, statistical mechanics, computational and condensed matter physics, thermodynamics and kinetics, and the topology of disordered networks.  John is the author of over 320 peer-reviewed publications and is the incoming Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of the American Ceramic Society.  He is co-author of Fundamentals of Inorganic Glasses, 3rd ed. (Elsevier, 2019), the definitive textbook on glass science and technology, and author of the newly published textbook, Materials Kinetics: Transport and Rate Phenomena (Elsevier, 2021).  John is a Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors, with 69 granted U.S. patents and another ~20 additional patents pending.  John is also a Fellow of the American Ceramic Society and the Society of Glass Technology.  He is a Member of the National Academy of Engineering.