Richard K. Brow is Curators’ Professor of Ceramic Engineering in the Materials Science & Engineering Department at the Missouri University of Science & Technology in Rolla, MO. He received his BS in Ceramic Engineering (1980) and MS in Glass Science (1982) from the New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University, and a PhD in Ceramic Science from Penn State University (1985). From 1985 through 1997, he was a senior member of the technical staff at Sandia National Labs in Albuquerque, NM, where he developed glasses for a variety of engineering applications. Since 1998, he has been a faculty member at Missouri S&T, including a six-year stint as department chairman. His research involves studies of the structure and properties of inorganic glasses, including the development of new compositions for electronic, optical, biomedical and other applications. He has published over 150 papers on his research and has been awarded ten US patents. He has received a number of awards for his research, including recognitions from the American ceramic Society and the International Commission on Glass. When not nagging grad students about research and undergrads about homework sets, he enjoys skiing and golf with his family, and coaching his daughters’ softball and basketball teams.

Abstract: Engineering the Random Network: Scenes from One Career (so far) in Glass Science

The aesthetic qualities of glass attract our eye, but the mysteries of structure and the endless engineering opportunities for this material stimulate our mind. For thirty years, from the classrooms and labs in Binns-Merrill Hall to collaborations with colleagues from around the world, I have had the great good fortune to study glasses, to develop new compositions and to consider how the details of their molecular-level structures control useful engineering properties. I will describe some examples of how our understanding of glass structure led to the development of new compositions for different applications, including seals for pacemaker batteries and satellite components, solid-state lasers and new low-temperature optics. I will try to show how those lessons I first learned here as a student can still be applied to our current engineering challenges.