Research Interests: Atomic-scale processes that govern the mechanical behavior of advanced material systems. Making key observations and discoveries that define the way the mechanics and materials community thinks about and understands the properties of: nanocrystalline materials, MEMS and micro-lattice materials, thermal barrier coatings, armor ceramics, and high temperature structural materials.
Email: [email protected]
Kevin Hemker, the Alonzo G. Decker Chair and professor of mechanical engineering, is known for work explaining the underlying, atomic-level details that govern the mechanical response, performance and reliability of disparate material systems. He holds joint appointments in the departments of Materials Science and Engineering, and Earth and Planetary Sciences.
Hemker is the founding director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Additive Manufacturing and Architected Materials (JAM2) and has sponsored research projects with the United States Air Force, Army and Navy, as well as the Department of Energy, the National Science Foundation, NASA, and the JHU Applied Physics Lab (APL). He is leading a collaborative effort to develop Metal MEMS of nanotwinned-NiMoW alloys with an unprecedented balance of properties and the potential to ensure that sensors can hold up to the demands of the next technological frontier. Hemker also was co-principal investigator of a $1.6 million Designing Materials to Revolutionize and Engineer Our Future (DMREF) grant from the National Science Foundation, in which researchers at Johns Hopkins and Georgetown University are studying the fused filament fabrication (FFF) process and its effect on the underlying molecular structure and properties of 3-D-printed polymers. He is currently one of the leading PIs of a SURPASS project, a multi-million dollar initiative to create solutions to some of the world’s most challenging problems. Hemker is also part of two large multi-university grants, funded via the National Science Foundation and the Office of Naval Research, aiming to understand high temperature effects of additively manufactured materials.
Hemker served as editor of Scripta Materialia from 2004 to 2011 and was a member and vice chair of the DARPA Defense Science Research Council from 2010 to 2015.
He is the 2018 president of The Minerals, Metals & Materials Society (TMS), a member of the HRL Technical Advisory Group, and a member of the SRI Technology Council. He received the Materials Science Research Silver Medal from ASM International and has been named a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME), the American Society of Metals (ASM International), and TMS and is a member of the Material Research Society and the American Ceramics Society.
Hemker received a BS in metallurgy from the University of Cincinnati in 1985 and a master’s and PhD in materials science and engineering from Stanford University in 1987 and 1990, respectively. He completed a postdoctoral fellowship in physics at the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne before joining the faculty of the Whiting School of Engineering in 1993.
EDUCATION
- Ph.D. Materials Science & Engineering 1990, Stanford University
- M.S. Materials Science & Engineering 1987, Stanford University
- B.S. Metallurgical Engineering 1985, University of Cincinnati
EXPERIENCE
- 2017 – Present: Founding Director, Johns Hopkins Center for Additive Manufacturing and Architected Materials (JAM2)
- 2018 – 2019: President, The Mineral-Metals-Materials Society
- 2016 – 2018: Vice President, The Mineral-Metals-Materials Society
- 2011 – Present: J/S FACULTY APPOINTMENT, A&S Earth and Planetary Sciences
- 2011 – 2011: Moderator and Co-chair, Plenary Opening Session of 2011 Materials Science & Technology Conference & Exhibition
- 2011 – Present: Alonzo G. Decker Chair of Mechanical Engineering, Whiting School of Engineering
- 2008 – 2014: Director, Public and Governmental Affair Committee, TMS.
- 2007 – 2013: Chair, WSE Mechanical Engineering
- 2006 – 2017: Director, Center for Materials Engineering and Development
- 2006 – 2007: Chair, Johns Hopkins University Homewood Faculty Assembly Steering Committee
- 2005 – 2006: Vice Chair, Johns Hopkins University Homewood Faculty Assembly Steering Committee
- 2004 – 2004: Co-Chair, Department of Mechanical Engineering
- 2003 – 2003: Co-Chair, Symposium X: Multi-scale Modeling, Materials Research Society Spring Meeting
- 2002 – 2003: Chair, Metallurgical and Materials Transactions
- 2002 – 2003: Interim Director, JHU, Center for Advanced Metallic and Ceramic Systems
- 2002 – 2003: Interim Director, Center for Advance Metallic and Ceramic Systems
- 2001 – 2002: Chair, Third International Symposium on Structural Intermetallics (ISSI-3)
- 2001 – 2002: Vice Chair, Metallurgical and Materials Transactions
- 2001 – 2001: Invited Professor, Université Paris Nord, Institut Galilée
- 2001 – 2007: Chair, Mechanical Engineering Program, WSE Engineering for Professionals (EP)
- 1997 – 2001: Associate Professor, WSE Mechanical Engineering
- 1995 – 1995: Invited Professor, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale Lausanne (EPFL)
- 1993 – 1997: Assistant Professor, WSE Mechanical Engineering
- 1990 – 1993: Postdoctoral Fellow, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale Lausanne (EPFL)