Last week saw the announcement of new members of the board of directors for the American Society for Materials Research (MRS). Southern University of Science and Technology (SUSTech) was thrilled to have Professor of Physics Zhao Yusheng appointed to the MRS board of directors, effective January 1st 2019.

MRS wrote in his appointment of Zhao Yusheng that as a longtime member of MRS, Yusheng has been a frequent tutorial instructor and served as a Symposium Organizer for the 2015 MRS Fall Meeting in Boston. As both a research fellow of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and a guest professor of Peking University, Yusheng will provide a broad international perspective to board discussions.

Prof. Zhao is a high-pressure physicist with extensive experience in diffraction studies of crystal structures, equations of state, phase transitions, and storage/transport properties of energy materials, hydrous phases, minerals, metals and ceramics. He has been working on synthesis, characterization, and modeling of mantle mineral, clathrate hydrates, metal-organic frameworks, hydrogen storage materials, superhard materials, metallic glasses, and nanostructured composites.

Prof. Zhao was responsible for the development of high P-T neutron diffraction capability at LANSCE and had designed/implemented many high-pressure apparatuses and cell assemblies for various experimental applications. He has succeeded with the first simultaneous high P-T neutron diffraction cell assembly and has made the hybrid high-P/low-T gas/fluid cells for neutron diffraction experiments.

His research interests include energy materials, condensed matter physics, crystallography, and geophysics; his technical specialties cover high P-T and high-P/low-T instrumentations (design, fabrication, and implementation) for neutron and synchrotron X-ray diffraction, ultrasonic elasticity measurement, and calorimetric thermal analysis. Prof. Zhao’s recent instrumentation efforts focus on developing tri-axial/six-ram press and core-flood piston-cylinder system for integrated diffraction, tomography, ultrasonic, and thermo-mechanics experiments using neutron and synchrotron light sources. He has published nearly 280 SCI articles, has been cited more than 11,000 times, with an H-index of 54, and has obtained 7 US patents and 3 international patents.

MRS is an international organization of over 14,500 materials researchers from academia, industry and government, and a recognized leader in promoting the advancement of interdisciplinary materials research and technology to improve the quality of life. MRS members are engaged and enthusiastic professionals hailing from physics, chemistry, biology, mathematics and engineering—the full spectrum of materials research. Headquartered in Warrendale, Pennsylvania (USA), MRS membership now spans over 90 countries, with 49 percent of members residing outside the United States. In addition to its communications and publications portfolio, MRS organizes high-quality scientific meetings, attracting over 13,000 attendees annually and facilitating interactions among a wide range of experts from the cutting edge of the global materials community. MRS is also a recognized leader in education outreach and advocacy for scientific research.