Dr. Kelvin Xie has joined the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at Texas A&M University as an assistant professor.
Xie comes to Texas A&M from Johns Hopkins University where he received his postdoctoral training. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Sydney, Australia, in mechanical engineering and his bachelor degrees in biomedical engineering and finance from the University of Sydney, Australia.
Xie’s research focuses on understanding and designing lighter and stronger structural materials such as Magnesium alloys, boron carbide and 3-D printed ceramics, assisted by advanced nano-scale and atomic-level characterization techniques.
“In the area of ceramic engineering, we revealed the twinning mechanisms in boron carbide, a light-weight body armor material, as a function of chemistry and local bonding,” Xie said. “This ability to control twinning is expected to help design the next generation of lightweight body armor, where twin interfaces provide additional strength and toughness.”
In the area of metallurgy, Xie and his colleagues systematically investigated the dislocation and twin structures in deformed bulk magnesium single crystals, which substantially contributed to the understanding that explains why Magnesium and Magnesium alloys generally exhibit poor ductility and formability.
Xie will begin teaching fundamentals of materials science and engineering classes this spring.