2015 ANS Mark Mills Award Goes to Dr. Boopathy Kombaiah

The Mark Mills award conferred by the American Nuclear Society (ANS) recognizes the important contributions of the late Mark Mills to nuclear science and engineering. It is awarded every year to the graduate student author who submits the best original technical paper contributing to the advancement of science and engineering related to the atomic nucleus.

Boopathy Kombaiah, a former PhD student in MS&E guided by Prof K.L. Murty, has been selected to receive the 2015 ANS-Mark Mills award for his recent research article entitled “Dislocation cross-slip controlled creep in Zircaloy-4 at high stresses” published in ‘Materials Science and Engineering: A623 (2015) 114-123’. The official presentation of a plaque and a monetary award of $500 will be made during the 2015 ANS Winter Meeting in Washington, DC from November 8-12, 2015.

Dr Kombaiah obtained his Bachelor of Engineering degree in Metallurgical Engineering from PSG College of Technology in India in 2005 and Master of Engineering degree from Indian Institute of Science, India in 2009. He was a Marie-Curie Early Stage Researcher at EMPA-Materials Science and Technology in Switzerland before joining NCSU in spring 2011 as a research assistant in the Nuclear Materials Group working under the guidance of Prof. K.L. Murty on creep characterization of Zr alloys with application to the reliability during dry storage and transportation of used nuclear fuel. He graduated in May 2015 and is now working as a post-doctoral fellow at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, PA.

While he published about 4 technical papers based on his doctoral degree research funded by DOE/NEUP and National Science Foundation, his recent paper entitled, ‘Coble, Orowan Strengthening, and Dislocation Climb Mechanisms in a Nb-Modified Zircaloy Cladding’, in Met Mat Trans was recently selected as Editor’s Choice Article by AM&P-eNews on Aug 12, 2015.