Dr. Steve May
, professor of MSE, will join the leadership team officially as Department Head, effective July 1, 2020. He has served as assistant Department Head since 2017, as well as graduate advisor for the last five years. Prior to that, Steve served as chair of the departmental graduate admissions committee. He has been incredibly engaged in our college-wide strategic planning process, and I am looking forward to his transition to the leadership team.
As Department Head, Steve aims to implement programs and initiatives that enrich the intellectual environment and deepen the educational value of our programs, with early efforts such as improving integration of on-campus educational activities with students’ co-op experiences, revising the MSE graduate curricula to increase flexibility for M.S. and Ph.D. students, and incorporating more hands-on experimental and computational activities into courses. He is also interested in expanding the research impact of the department by providing faculty with resources to launch new projects in rapidly emerging areas, and by promoting collaborative research activities such as interdepartmental projects.
Upon accepting the position, Steve commented, MSE “has been my professional home for the last ten years, during which time I’ve benefited in a multitude of ways from the collective goodwill, wisdom and generosity of my colleagues. I hope by serving in this role, I can give back to the many members of the tight-knit MSE community, including the students, staff, faculty and alumni.”
Steve joined Drexel in 2009, having held the position of a postdoctoral researcher at Argonne National Laboratory in the Materials Science Division for the prior two years. His research focuses on the synthesis of novel electronic and magnetic materials in thin film form and characterization of their functional properties for potential use in next generation information processing, data storage, or energy devices. Steve has received the NSF CAREER award, an ARO Young Investigator Award, the Ross Coffin Purdy Award from the American Ceramic Society, and the Bradley Stoughton Award for Young Teachers from ASM International. He holds a B.S. in Engineering Science and Mechanics from Penn State University and a Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering from Northwestern University.
My sincere thanks go to Antonios Zavaliangos for his leadership of the search, as well as committee members Steve Weber, Michel Barsoum, Hao Cheng, Caroline Schauer, Andy Magenau and Chris Weyant. I also appreciate the involvement of the entire department for their engagement in filling this critical role.
Sincerely,
