Long-serving professor J. David Embury wins Acta Materialia Gold Medal

McMaster professor J. David Embury is the 2015 recipient of the Acta Materialia Gold Medal Award.

The prestigious award recognizes outstanding leadership in materials research, and has been presented to an international researcher each year since 1974. Winners receive a gold medal, an inscribed certificate and a cash prize of $10,000.

Embury, a professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, first joined the University in 1966 as an assistant professor.

He has served in a variety of positions over his remarkable five-decade career at McMaster, including: department chair, member of the Senate and acting director of the Brockhouse Institute for Materials Research.

He is one of 80 members of the Royal Society of Canada to come from McMaster, and is also a Fellow of the American Institute of Mining and Metallurgy.

His research specialties include deformation and fracture of metallic and composite materials, applications of electron microscopy to materials science and the processing of metal matrix composites, along with ultra high strength materials and multilayer structures.

In addition to his teaching and research activities, Embury has worked on educational aid programs for the government of Canada, and has held visiting professorships in France, Norway, Brazil, China and several other countries around the globe.

He currently resides in France, and was awarded La Grande Médaille de la Société Française de Matériaux et de Métallurgie in 2009.