Vita

Preface from "Nano and Microstructural Design of Advanced Materials: A Commemorative Volume on Professor G. Thomas' Seventieth Birthday", Edited by M.A. Meyers, R.O. Ritchie, M. Sarikaya

The importance of the nanoscale effect has been recognized in materials research for over fifty years. The understanding and control of the nanostructure has been, to a large extent, made possible by new atomic analysis and characterization methods. Transmission electron microscopy revolutionized the investigation of materials. This volume focuses on the effective use of advanced analysis and characterization methods for the design of materials. The nanostructural and microstructural design for a set of targeted mechanical/functional properties has become a recognized field in Materials Science and Engineering. This book contains a series of authoritative and up-to-date articles by group of experts and leaders in this field. It is based on a three-day symposium held at the joint TMS-ASM meeting in Columbus, Ohio. The book is comprised of three parts: Characterization, Functional Materials, and Structural Materials. The book is dedicated to Gareth Thomas who has pioneered this approach to materials science and engineering area over a wide range of materials problems and applications.

Professor Thomas’ lifetime in research has been devoted to understanding the fundamentals of structure-property relations in materials for which he has also pioneered the development and applications of electron microscopy and microanalysis. He established the first laboratory for high voltage electron microscopy, at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. His research has contributed to the development and nano/microstructural tailoring of materials from steels and aluminum alloys, to high temperature and functional ceramics and magnetic materials, for specific property performances, and has resulted in a dozen patents.

Professor Thomas is a pioneer and world leader in the applications of electron microscopy to materials in general. Following his Ph.D. at Cambridge in 1995, as an ICI Fellow, he resolved the problem of intergranular embrittlement in the Al/Zn/ Mg high strength alloys with failed in the tree Comet aircraft crashes and became identified with Prof. Jack Nutting as the “PFZ” –precipitate-free-zone, condition, now in wide general use to describe grain boundary morphologies leading to intergranular corrosion and mechanical failure. This work prompted Dr. Kent van Alcoa to invite him to spend the summer of 1959 in their research labs at New Kensington, Pa. From there and after a trans-USA lecture tour he was invited in 1960 to join the Berkeley faculty, (becoming a full professor in 1966), where he starved a major research program within the newly formed “Inorganic Materials Research Division ”of the (now ) Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. It was there, after nine years’ effort that he founded the National Center for Electron Microscopy, which opened in 1982 and which he directed until he resigned in 1993, to spend 1.5 years helping establish the University of Science & Technology in Hong Kong. There he also set up and directed the technology Transfer Center. He returned to Berkeley in 1994 to continue teaching and research, and in his career has over 100 graduates. With his students and colleagues he has over 500 publications, several books, including the first text on Electron Microscopy of Metals (1962), and in 1979 – with M.J. Goringe, a widely used referenced text- Transmission Electron Microscopy of Materials which was also translated into Russian and Chinese.

His academic career in Berkeley has included administrative service as Associate Dean, Graduated Division, Assistant and Acting Vice-Chancellor- Academic Affairs, in the turbulent years of student unrest (1966-72). He was the Chair faculty of the College of Engineering (1972/73), and Senior Faculty Scientist, LBNL-DOE, which sponsored most of his research funding. In 1995 he received the Berkeley Citation for “Distinguished Achievement” at UC Berkeley. Professor Thomas was Associate Director, Institute for Mechanics and Materials, UC San Diego, from 1993 to 1996. In this capacity, he formulated new research directions and stimulated research at the interface of Mechanics and Materials. He is currently Professor in the Graduate School, UC Berkeley, Professor-on-Recall, UC San Diego, and VP R&D of a new company MMFX Technology, founded in1999, to utilize steels for improved corrosion resistant concrete reinforcement. In the USA the infrastructure repair costs are in the trillion dollar range. In 2002 the company received the Pankow award (American Inst. Of Civil Engineers) for innovation in Engineering, based on Prof. Thomas’ patents on nano microcomposite steels.

Professor Thomas has also played an important role in promoting the profession. He was president of the Electron Microscopy Society of the US in 1974, and in 1974 he became Secretary General of the International Societies for Electron Microscopy for an unprecedented 12 years, and was president in 1986-90. He lectured extensively in foreign countries and helped promote microscopy and materials in developing countries, also serving as advisor in China, Taiwan, Korea, Singapore, Poland, México, et al. He also served on many committees of the ASM and TMS, and the National Research Council. After reorganizing the editorial structure of Acta and Scripta Metallurgica (now Materialia), when in 1995 he took over as Editor-in-chief, he became Technical Director, Acta Mat. Inc. 1998 until April 2002. He was Chairman of the Board in 1982/84.

In recognition of his many achievements, Professor Thomas has received numerous honors and awards, including, besides his Sc.D.-Cambridge University in 1969: Honorary Doctorates from Lehigh (1996) and Krakow (1999); The Acta Materialia Gold Medal (2003), The ASM Gold Medal (2001), Sauveur Achievement Award (ASM- 1991), Honorary Professor, Beijing University of Sci. & Technology (1958), Honorary Memberships in Foreign Materials societies (Japan, Korea, India, etc.), E.O. Lawrence Award (US Dept. of Energy-1978), Rosenhain Medal (The Metals Soc-UK- 1977), Guggenheim Fellow (1972), von Humboldt Senior Scientist awards (1996 & 1981), the I-R Award (R&D Magazine-1987), Sorby Award, (IMS-1987) and the Distinguished Scientist Award (EMSA-1980). He received the Bradley Stoughton Teaching Award (ASM) in 1956, and the Grossman (ASM), and Curtis-Mcgraw (ASEE) research awards in 1966. He is a Fellow of numerous scientific societies. In recognition of these achievements, Professor Thomas was elected to both the National Academy of Sciences (1983) and the National Academy of Engineering (1982). Professor Thomas, born in South Wales, UK, is also a former rugby and cricket player (member, MCC), enjoys skiing and grand opera.

The editors thank the speakers at the symposium and the authors of the scholarly contributions presented in this volume. A special gratitude is expressed to Prof. S. Suresh for having enabled the publication of this volume by Elsevier. All royalties from the sale of this book are being donated to the TMS/AIME and ASM societies for the establishment of an award recognizing excellence in Mechanical Behavior of Materials. November, 2003

Life

In Memoriam, by J.W. Morris Jr.

Professor Gareth Thomas is almost universally recognized as one of the leading Materials Scientists of the twentieth century, and was, in fact, one of those who created this academic discipline. He is best known for his seminal contributions to the development of electron microscopy as a central research tool in Materials Science, but is also honored for the breadth and depth of his research on the structure and properties of materials, for his executive leadership of the leading scientific societies and technical journals in the field, and for his significant contributions to the education of a generation of productive materials scientists.

Gareth Thomas was born on August 9, 1932, and raised in Wales, and was educated there through the completion of his undergraduate degree in Metallurgy, from the University of Wales, Cardiff, in 1952. He then entered Cambridge University to pursue a Ph.D. in Metallurgy. Cambridge was at that time a hotbed of research and development in transmission electron microscopy, a new tool that permitted scientists, for the first time, to study the microstructure of materials at the nanoscale and to characterize such important crystal defects as dislocations and nanoprecipitates. This revolutionary observational tool led to an explosion of new information on the nature of materials at the nanoscale along with an avalanche of new understanding of why materials behaved as they did and how that behavior might be controlled. Gareth immersed himself in this new technology, became one if its rising stars, and generated important new results on the hardening of aerospace aluminum alloys. His research proved very useful in the analysis of the aluminum fatigue failures that led to the demise of the Comet aircraft, the first commercial passenger jet.

On completing his Ph.D. in 1959, Gareth came to the United States as a Visiting Scientist at the Alcoa Research Center. Shortly thereafter he was offered a faculty position in what is now the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at Berkeley, with a specific assignment to develop transmission electron microscopy as a research tool for the study of materials. He spent the rest of his career at Berkeley as a Professor of Metallurgy, moving to Professor of the Graduate School on his semi-retirement in 1995, and to Professor Emeritus of Materials Science in 2006. Until 1995 he held a joint appointment with the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

In research, Professor Thomas is best known for his leadership in the field of electron microscopy. By the end of the 1960s he had developed one of the world’s leading laboratories at Berkeley. This activity culminated in the founding of the National Center for Electron Microscopy at LBNL in 1983. Gareth Thomas was the founding Scientific Director of NCEM, and held that position until 1993.

However, Gareth was always of the opinion that electron microscopy was a tool rather than an end in itself, and should be judged by its value in research. He exemplified that attitude by doing significant research on a broad range of topics in Materials Science. His research on the structure and properties of alloy steels generated important scientific contributions to steel metallurgy, the development of a series of new alloy steels, including some of the first “dual-phase” steels, and the commercialization of those alloys through his participation in a company, MMFX Technologies, that exploited his results. His research on magnetic materials led to significant publications and patents in that technology, particularly including the development of giant magnetoresistive heterogeneous alloys. He also contributed to the characterization and development of advanced structural ceramics. His intellectual contributions are recorded in two influential texts, in more than 500 scientific articles and in a dozen patents. His contributions are recognized in a lengthy list of prestigious awards, including election to both the National Academy of Engineering and the National Academy of Science, an Sc.D. awarded by Cambridge University, honorary doctorates from Lehigh University and from the University of Mining and Metallurgy (Krakow), election to the grade of Fellow in the American Society for Metals (ASM), the Royal Microscopical Society (UK) and The Metallurgical Society (TMS), honorary memberships in the Japan Institute of Metals, the Korean Institute of Metals and the Indian Institute of Metals and Materials, and many prestigious awards from technical societies in the materials community.

His professional leadership in the materials community included his service as President of the Electron Microscopy Society of America and the International Federation of Societies for Electron Microscopy, his service as Editor and Technical Director of Acta Materialia, which is, arguably, the leading technical journal in Materials Science, and his membership on the Board of Directors of The Metallurgical Society (TMS).

His contributions to the University include, most importantly, the education of some 100 graduate students, post-doctoral students and scientific visitors, a great many of whom hold senior positions in the field. (As a teacher and lecturer, he was adamant that students should be “challenged rather than entertained.” As he put it, “Berkeley is an institution of learning, not an institution of teaching.”) He was also active in executive service to the University, serving as Associate Dean of the Graduate School and Acting Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs, as well as on many academic and administrative committees. On his retirement in 1995, he was awarded the Berkeley Citation for his contributions to the University.

As a person, Gareth is well described as one who was truly alive, always excited about something, always pursuing some new (and, occasionally, crazy) idea, always stimulating those around him. As a young man he was an athlete, a fly-half in rugby who was good enough to play for the Olympic Club (and sacrifice a few teeth in the process). In his maturity he was partial to great wines, gourmet food and automobiles. He maintained a notoriously unreliable green Jaguar for many years (“Do you know what they call Jaguar owners?” he once moaned, “Pedestrians.”) Though an enthusiastic America citizen, Gareth was a Welshman his whole life. He was returned to his home in Wales on his death on February 6, 2014, and is buried there.

He is survived by his second wife, Annelies, his son, Julian, his daughter-in-law Kimberly and two grandchildren.

http://senate.universityofcalifornia.edu/GarethThomas.html

Obituary: by Kathleen Tierney, The Daily Californian

UC Berkeley professor emeritus Gareth Thomas, known as a leader in the field of electron microscopy, died Feb. 7. He was 81.

Thomas grew up in Wales and obtained a doctorate in metallurgy at Cambridge University in 1955. He brought his knowledge and skills as an electron microscopist to UC Berkeley when he joined the faculty in 1960.

In 1976, he, along with Robert Glaeser and John Cowley, proposed the creation of a National Center for Electron Microscopy at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and oversaw its construction. After the NCEM was officially established in 1983, he served as its director until 1991.

“Through hard work and talent of persuasion, he founded, mostly through federal backing, an electron microscopy center which soon became the top one in the country,” said Didier de Fontaine, longtime friend and colleague of Thomas.

According to Uli Dahmen, director of the NCEM and Thomas’ former student, Thomas’ vision and dedication laid the groundwork for the NCEM’s many successes, which include surpassing barriers of microscopic resolution, down to the level of half an Angstrom, smaller than the diameter of a single hydrogen atom.

“He put Berkeley on the map and made it a worldwide center for electron microscopy that attracted scientists from all over the world,” Dahmen said. “What set him apart was the fact that he was a microscopist with a big vision, and that’s how he was able to convince other people of its importance.”

Thomas also achieved the rare honor of being elected into both the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering in 1983 and 1982, respectively. In 2009, Thomas was elected a fellow at the Microscopy Society of America.

In addition to his research at the NCEM and an extensive list of publications, Thomas was also a dedicated professor. He advised and graduated more than 100 UC Berkeley graduate students and in 2006 was named professor emeritus.

“He trained a generation of students who went on to be leaders in the field of materials research,” said Mark Asta, professor and chair of the materials science and engineering department, in an email.

De Fontaine remembers Thomas as not only a devoted scientist but also an avid rugby player in his early years in Berkeley.

“He was a hard-driving, fiery Welshman who in fact had played a mean game of rugby as a young man,” de Fontaine said.

Dahmen described Thomas, who was known for being competitive and driven, as “the life of the party.”

“It was always a pleasure to share a bottle from his collection of fine wines,” said UC Berkeley professor emeritus James Evans, a former colleague and friend of Thomas.

Thomas is survived by his second wife and his son, Julian Thomas, from his first marriage. He will be laid to rest in Wales.

http://www.dailycal.org/2014/02/23/uc-berkeley-professor-emeritus-gareth-thomas-dies-age-81/

Obituary: by Jeff Th. M. De Hosson (Editor for Acta Materialia, Inc.) Subhash Mahajan (Coordinating Editor Acta Materialia/Scripta Materialia/Acta Biomaterialia) George T. (Rusty) Gray, III (Chairman , Board of Governors, Acta Materialia, Inc.) Ramamoorthy Ramesh (University of California, Berkeley, USA)

UC Berkeley professor emeritus Gareth Thomas, known worldwide as a leader in the field of physical metallurgy and electron microscopy, passed away on February 6, 2014 in the town of Oestgeest, the Netherlands. He was 81.

Professor Gareth Thomas received his BSc in Metallurgy at the University of Wales in 1952, and his PhD at Cambridge University in 1955, followed by ScD in Metallurgy at Cambridge University in 1969. His studies in Cambridge were at St Catharine College, a constituent college of the University founded in 1473, often referred to by the nickname "Catz". In the early sixties of last century Gareth Thomas stood on the threshold of something really new: i.e. on the development of transmission electron microscopy to solve materials problems, and in fact he published one of the very first textbooks, together with Mike Goringe, on transmission electron microscopy of materials.

Gareth Thomas became a world renowned expert expounding on the interplay between microstructure, processing and the properties of a variety of high technology materials. His research was directed at understanding the structure of inorganic materials using the power of the electron microscope, then using the results to improve existing materials or to tailor the microstructure of new materials to achieve the desired properties, including economic feasibility. He applied his skills with great success to a wide variety of materials (e.g. metals, ceramics, semiconductors, and magnets, etc.).

In 1976, he, along with Robert Glaeser and John Cowley, proposed the creation of a National Center for Electron Microscopy at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, USA. After the NCEM was officially established in 1983, he served as its first director until 1991. We remember that he was really on top of almost everything during this period: passionate to get his center off and running, with a great sense of urgency.

His seminal work at NCEM/UCB, embellished in more than 500 publications and a dozen patents, stimulated hundreds of investigations worldwide over the last 50 years, clarifying structural aspects and thereby permitting analysis of the structural properties. His work has been recognized with numerous national and international awards, far too many to list separately in this obituary. When asked, he told us that he was most proud of being elected both in the National Academy of Sciences (1983), in the National Academy of Engineering (1984) of the USA and of the Acta Materialia Gold medal (2003).

In addition to his research, Gareth Thomas was also a dedicated supervisor and professor. He advised and graduated more than 100 UC Berkeley graduate students, a feat matched in our field by only a very few. He provided young people all his support and very importantly also the credits for their scientific work. He used to say a university is usually defined as an institution for education but a more appropriate definition would be to say: a university is an academic institution for learning, both for students and professors! In addition to materials science he was always involved and interested in ‘science policy’ as well as in ‘politics in science’. He served as the Graduate Studies Associate Dean in 1968, Assistant to the Chancellor in 1969-72, Academic Affairs Acting Vice Chancellor in 1971-72, the Faculty of the College of Engineering Chairman in 1972-73 of UCB.

In his long, long life - how could it be otherwise - adversity, grief, jealousy (I got it all, he told us once) and the terrible illness of Alzheimer have not been spared him. But, he remained cheerful and caring, a bit of an "impatient and busy bee", very interested in his surroundings and socially highly developed and committed. He stayed a very charming person till the very, very end.

To outsiders ‘science’ may sound a rather boring and undercooled activity , but as we have known Gareth Thomas, for him science had everything to do with emotions, to get scientific ideas, papers , grants, funding accepted by the community… for him it was all emotional, ‘plane stress’ or ‘plane strain’. Yes indeed, we also remember Gareth Thomas acting sometimes as a hothead, like a spitfire but what we admire in him that he stayed authentic, always trustable as a colleague, reliable as a good friend, and with an amazing passion and a sense of urgency in everything he did: from his beloved wine tasting to being technical director of Acta Materialia, Inc. Board of Governors and Editor in Chief of Acta Materialia and Scripta Materialia (1995-1998), one of the foremost journals in our field. Besides having a vision on microscopy for materials engineering, i.e. as he was saying ‘gaining sight after being blind’, he was also a visionary chairman of the Board of Governors of Acta Materialia, Inc. by promoting the idea of establishing a new journal called Acta BioMaterialia. This turned out to be an excellent and extremely successful idea. It goes without saying that the journal receives and enjoys a very high impact in the field of biomaterials.

An important rule, as it seems to us, is what Gareth Thomas adapted from his beloved rugby sport, and that is: be fair and play fair! Foul play includes: kicking or tripping players and tackling too early, or too late, above the shoulders, as it reads in rugby language… and Gareth Thomas hated this kind of foul play. As official rugby instructions read: the rule of play fair aims at keeping injuries to a minimum. This is what Gareth advocated to all of us: be fair in science and in life, keeping injuries to a minimum. But ….. sometimes you need a scrum where players from each team bind together in their own 3-4-1 formation in a crouching position.

Gareth Thomas loved intellectual scrums and we all loved him for that as well. We will miss him and remain thankful for what he has given to us as a scientist and as a memorable and extremely charming person.