Professor, Materials Science & Engineering and Mechanical Engineering
M. Katherine Banks Chair
Member, National Academy of Engineering
Fellow, National Academy of Inventors
Research Interests
Synthesis and behavior of nanostructured and multi-scale materials with particular emphasis on processing fundamentals and physical behavior.
Diran Apelian Distinguished Professor of Materials Science and Engineering
Chief Strategy Officer, Samueli School of Engineering
Director, ACRC UCI
Diran Apelian, a distinguished professor at UCI’s Samueli School of Engineering, serves as Chief Strategy Officer and Director of ACRC. With degrees from Drexel University and MIT, he’s a Fellow of TMS, ASM, APMI, and a member of prestigious academies. Formerly at WPI, he founded the Metal Processing Institute. Apelian’s research spans materials processing, including alloy development, solidification, recycling, and machine learning. Pioneering work in solidification processing and digital manufacturing, he’s credited with over 700 publications and 21 patents.
Sakshi, a doctoral student at UCI’s Materials Science and Engineering department, collaborates with the NSF-MRSEC team, exploring Complex Concentrated Alloys (CCAs). Her PhD focuses on CrCoNi FCC CCAs, renowned for outstanding mechanical properties at low temperatures. With a Bachelor’s in Metallurgical and Materials Engineering from Malaviya National Institute of Technology, India, she researched heating rates’ impact on cold-rolled low-carbon steels for her undergraduate thesis. In her free time, Sakshi enjoys acrylic painting, cooking, and reading.
Calvin obtained his M.S. degree in 2021 from UCI’s Department of Materials Science and Engineering, under Enrique J. Lavernia’s guidance, and is now pursuing a PhD in the same department. His research within the ACRC is backed by the UCI Center for Complex and Active Materials (CCAM), an NSF MRSEC. Calvin investigates refractory complex concentrated alloys (RCCAs), focusing on the impact of grain boundary segregation of impurities like oxygen, carbon, and boron on the ductilization of NbMoTaW RCCA. Outside of academia, Calvin enjoys cycling, driving, camping, and fly fishing.
Ryan Holdsworth earned his B.S. from the University of California, Berkeley and is now a doctoral student studying Materials Science and Engineering at Texas A&M University. His research focuses on understanding the work-hardening behavior of metals through a Kocks-Mecking model formulation. This analysis aims to take a construction based upon first principles and see its use in engineering applications. The focus of the research has been on additively manufactured metals to see if this method can be used to characterize the large variation in properties that can be seen through changes in the processing conditions.
Collaborators: Sandia National Laboratories, Diran Apelian Research Group – University of California, Irvine.
