Undercooled: A Materials Education Podcast

Steve and Tim talk with Prof. Robert Talbert from Grand Valley State University.  Robert is a math professor and has been very influential in inverted or flipped teaching and alternative grading in the past 20 years.  Recently, he and a colleague, William Clarke, also a math professor at Grand Valley State University, wrote a book called "Grading for Growth".  Most of the podcast is focussed on th...

Tim and Steve talk with 4 of the Materials Science and Engineering undergraduate students who got to fly to Las Vegas to attend the TMS annual meeting in April 2025.  They talked about their experiences and the impact that it had on their education and outlook for the future. You can find the YouTube video here: https://youtu.be/yG4KzbWLh3w?si=HGqhaznlJFzLfmNp This episode is sponsored by the Nort...

Steve ran into Christina Haden at the 2025 ABET symposium in San Diego two weeks ago.  Christina has developed a multi step method of assessing student outcomes using performance indicators that span a period of time across an entire curriculum to gain knowledge of learning growth.  She is experimenting with longer times and using her methods to perform longitudinal studies of learning gains.  She...

Steve and Tim ran into Taylor Sparks at the TMS meeting and decided to do a podcast.  Taylor is a professor in the Materials Science and Engineering Department at U. Utah.  He is also the host of the long running materials science podcast called "Materialism: A Materials Science Podcast".  You can find the podcast on Apple Podcasts at the link below or you can just search for it on any podcast pla...

Tim and Steve were at the TMS meeting in Las Vegas and ran into Professor Jerry Floro from the Materials Science and Engineering Department at the University of Virginia.  We talk about his efforts to bring active learning into his classes, his work in helping start an undergraduate program at UVa, and lots of other fun things.  You can learn more about Jerry and the MS&E department at UVa at...

Steve and Tim were walking through the TMS Annual Meeting Exhibit hall in Las Vegas and stopped to talk to Dr. Adam Hope at the Thermo-Calc booth. Adam is a member of the TMS education committee.   He told us how he became a Materials Scientist and what a materials student might want to do if they wanted to get a job at Thermo-Calc. You can learn more about Thermo-Calc here: https://thermocalc.com...

Steve and Tim talk with Chris Gordon, the Director of the Wilson Student Team Projects Center at the U. of Michigan.   Chris tells us how the Wilson Center got started and evolved into what it is today.  There are 24 competition teams at the Wilson Center and it supports many capstone design projects, our Multidisciplinary Design program, and more.  Chris explains why community and safety are at t...

Tim and Steve talk with Professor Wenhao Sun about the way he is using Chat GPT in his thermodynamics and kinetics classes.  Wenhao demonstrates how he teaches students to use Chat GPT as a collaborator to solve much harder problems that are usually given to students.  He believes that this lets his students experience the higher levels of Blooms taxonomy and shows how he does this in a live demon...

Tim and Steve talk with Izzy Jaszczak about Michigan Technological University's metal casting course and the major changes the teaching staff has made to increase the course capacity to 60 students.  This was a course that she had taken as an undergraduate.  Working with Dr. Paul Sanders, Dr. Dale Dewald, and Peter Jaszczak, she updated the lab curriculum to give students more individual hands-on...

Tim and Steve talk with Dr. Enze Chen, a Lecturer in Materials Science and Engineering at Stanford University.  We talk about Enze's unique approach to teaching, his computational modules and materials informatics.  We touch on topics such as teaching Gen Z students, generative AI, and visualization in materials education.  Dr. Chen even talks about his sketching course for MS&E students.  You...

In this episode, Steve and Tim reflect on their recent teaching experiences, focusing on Tim's new math course and Steve's grading for growth experiment. They discuss the positive feedback from students, the structure of the math course, and the challenges of integrating AI tools in education. Additionally, they explore innovative grading methods that emphasize student engagement and learning rete...

Steve and Tim talk with Dr. Ellen Solomon, one of the program managers of the Multidisciplinary Design Program (MDP) at the University of Michigan.  Ellen graduated with an MS&E degree from Michigan and worked in industry before coming back to Michigan to run the research program side of MDP.  She talked to us about this very unique program that incorporates not only research projects, but pro...

Steve and Tim talk with Professor Tresa Pollock from UC Santa Barbara, the 2024 Van Vlack Lecturer in the MS&E department at U. Michigan.  Tresa has had a very long and distinguished career in Materials Science and Engineering and has mentored many many graduate students.  We had a discussion about graduate student mentoring amongst other things.  You can find her website here: https://materia...

Steve and Tim talk with Dr. Tershia Pinder-Grover, the director of the Center for Research on Learning and Teaching in Engineering (CRLT-Engin) in the College of Engineering at the University of Michigan.  This year marks the 20th anniversary of CRLT-Engin, a focused teaching center where the consultants all have degrees in engineering as well as engineering education.  CRLT of University of Michi...

Steve talks to Tim about his new math course.  He explains how it is going, what is challenging, and what is better than expected.  He also discusses his grading, student input, and other aspects of this new course. You can find the YouTube video here: https://youtu.be/djBIrRZLFVc?si=chiFCb_WQTaf3RmW This episode is sponsored by the North American Materials Education Symposium ( https://java.engin...

Tim talks with Micah Gendich, the University of Michigan MSE student association president.  UM has an organization called the Michigan Materials Society (MMS) that is run by undergraduate students with a little help from the graduate students.  They organize weekly luncheons, social events, and also professional development events.  They also engage with outreach and recruiting activities for our...

Tim and Steve talk about how they are getting ready for classes - which start next week! Tim is creating a completely new class that has never been taught before - Math for MS&E students at the second year undergraduate level. Steve is making some major changes in his team based intro to materials course by adding in components of Grading for Growth methods. some links:  Get the book Grading f...

Cindy talks with Tim and Steve about Engineering for One Planet and how she worked with the Lemelson Foundation to launch it. You can find the information talked about in the podcast here: https://engineeringforoneplanet.org/resources/ https://engineeringforoneplanet.org You can find the YouTube video here: https://youtu.be/b9KCccgB-ls?si=VK8htMYw7f-NrAcQ This episode is sponsored by the Universit...

Summary In this conversation, Steve, Tim and Marcus discuss the challenges of attracting students to material science and engineering (MSE) programs. They explore the concept of jobs to be done, which includes the functional, emotional, and social aspects of a product or service. Marcus suggests that MSE programs should focus on the emotional and social jobs that potential students want to fulfill...

Steve and Tim talk about the new season for the 2024-2025 academic year.  They plan to continue having great guests and add some curricular topics.  Please help us with our show!  Head over to this link and give us some feedback, suggest guests, suggest topics, suggest yourself! You can find the YouTube video (audio only) here: https://youtu.be/0_Qb8FnFTOU?si=EVf7mE0cMcbIdakS Feedback form:  https...

Gerard Mourou was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2018 along with his former student Donna Strickland.  The Nobel Prize was for developing chirped pulse amplification of femtosecond laser intensity.  This led to many important applications including the all laser Lasik eye surgery, a new method to reduce space junk by using coherently combined femtosecond pulses in space, astrophysics resear...

Steve and Tim talk with Dr. Ray Decker today.  Ray earned his undergraduate and graduate degrees at the U. of Michigan.  He spent most of his career at International Nickel Corporation and has since started several companies as an entrepreneur.  Thixomat and Nanomag are his two most recent companies.  He has been very active in ASM and especially the ASM Foundation.  Ray is especially interested i...

You can find the YouTube version of the Podcast here: https://youtu.be/cyw4_vGhy34?si=6CIQBrkptLvgv2m5 We also have a condensed video version that can be found here: https://youtu.be/hCV4XCp5s20?si=QSoQWPcBpT-pZ1Wo You can find out more about the North American Materials Education Symposium this coming summer in Ann Arbor here: https://java.engin.umich.edu/NAMES24/ This episode is sponsored by the...

Tim and Steve talk with Aeriel about her experience being a student and transitioning to an assistant professor at the Ohio State University You can find the YouTube video here: https://youtu.be/BjT98yLSNjI?si=_rm_tfMsvBXF1-7U You can read about the Aeriel Views project here: https://aerielviews.blog/ You can read more about her work with SWE Liberia here: https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10....

Tim and Steve talk with Chip Keough, the former CEO of Applied Process, Inc and the past chair of the ASM Foundation.  Chip is a UM Alum and currently and adjunct faculty member of the UM MSE department.  Chip explains the difference between ASM and ASM Foundation and why the materials community benefits from both.  He has been very involved with the ASM Foundation teachers camps and talks about i...