Tarasankar DebRoy, professor of materials science and engineering in the Penn State College of Earth and Mineral Sciences, received the 2026 Joining and Welding Science Award from the Joining and Welding Research Institute of the University of Osaka. Credit: Provided by Tarasankar DebRoy. All Rights Reserved.
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Tarasankar DebRoy, professor of materials science and engineering in the Penn State College of Earth and Mineral Sciences (EMS), received the 2026 Joining and Welding Science Award from the Joining and Welding Research Institute of Osaka University. He will be honored with an award ceremony and invited lecture on Nov. 24 at Osaka University, Japan.
The international award recognizes researchers for sustained and significant contributions to the science of joining materials. In naming DebRoy, the institute recognized his “pioneering contributions to welding and additive manufacturing through transport phenomena, optimization and artificial intelligence” according to the award announcement.
“Through his scientific discoveries, detailed in many books and research papers over the years, Tarasankar has influenced generations of new materials scientists,” said John Mauro, interim John Leone Dean in the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences and Dorothy Pate Enright Professor of Materials Science and Engineering. “This award is well known in the metallurgy community, and I cannot think of a more deserving recipient.”
DebRoy’s research focuses on computational materials processing, particularly the application of numerical transport phenomena and optimization in welding and additive manufacturing. Specifically, he builds models to compute tens of billions of equations to determine factors that affect metallurgical product quality, such as temperature, velocity fields, cooling rates and solidification parameters.
“Professor DebRoy has made seminal contributions to one of the most difficult subjects that spans all states of matter, from plasma to tangible solids that hold things together or build on an object of arbitrary complexity, one thin layer at a time,” wrote colleagues of DebRoy in an editorial on the recognition that appears in the journal Science and Technology of Welding and Joining. “His contributions have been quantitative, with theory and banks of equations that are openly testable, no hand waving! His original science on the weld pool, friction-stir joining [and] the printing of metallic objects has set the standard for generations to follow.”
Among his many awards and achievements, DebRoy received the Penn State Faculty Scholar Medal, a University-wide recognition of scholarly excellence; the Wilson Award for Excellence in Research, which honors EMS faculty members who have excelled in research; the Yoshiaki Arata Award and the Kenneth Easterling Award from the International Institute of Welding, France; the Distinguished Visiting Fellowship from the Royal Academy of Engineering, United Kingdom; and the following awards from the American Welding Society: The Adams Memorial Membership Award; the William Irrgang Memorial Award, the McKay-Helm Award, the Warren F. Savage Memorial Award, the Charles H. Jennings Memorial Award, William Spraragen Memorial Award, the Honorary Membership Award and the Comfort A. Adams Lecture Award.
DebRoy is a fellow of ASM international and of the American Welding Society.
Patricia Craig
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