Professor Douglas Irving has been chosen this year as one of only six recipients of the Alumni Distinguished Undergraduate Professor Award. As one of the most prestigious undergraduate awards given on campus, it is presented to those who have proven to be an outstanding instructor and have provided distinguished service in support of undergraduate teaching.
Professor Irving has been a faculty member in the Materials Science and Engineering Department at NCSU since 2008 and has distinguished himself among his peers with his passion for undergraduate teaching and the betterment of his students. He was recognized for his development of undergraduate curriculum within the MSE department, his outstanding track record in instruction of MSE undergraduate courses, and for the creation of learning opportunities for undergraduates outside the classroom. Students highlighted Professor Irving’s approachability, sense of humor, ability to make difficult concepts understandable, and his passion for their education.
Outside of the classroom, his research group develops computational models that aid in the design of materials for technologically important applications. Current projects include determination of the properties of point defects in wide and ultrawide bandgap materials from density functional theory, development of first principles informed multiscale models used to study electrical conductivity in polycrystalline ceramics and properties of electronic devices, prediction of electrical and optical properties resulting from defect equilibria important to modern devices and quantum information applications, and determination of properties (mechanical and chemical) of multi-principle component and high entropy metallic alloys. All electro-optical projects have leveraged the point defects informatics framework developed by Irving and his group and this structured information is being utilized with artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) approaches to accelerate the realization of desired properties through close collaboration with experimental groups.
More information on Dr. Irving can be found at https://www.mse.ncsu.edu/people/dlirving