Clark appointed Managing Director of Materials Characterization Facility

Dear Collegues,

It is my great pleasure to announce the official appointment of Dr. Betsy Clark as the Managing Director of the Materials Characterization Facility (MCF), effective September 1, 2021. Dr. Clark has been the interim Managing Director since July 1, 2020, following the retirement of Mr. Tom Nuhfer.  

After graduating from the University of Pittsburgh with a B.Sc. in Materials Science and Engineering, Dr. Clark obtained her Ph.D. in Materials Engineering from the University of California at Santa Barbara in 2013 with a thesis on "Surface engineering of Nickel alloys to form a stable alpha-Alumina barrier layer at T<1000°C". During her Ph.D. years, she received two Fellowships from UCSB's International Center for Materials Research which allowed her to carry out 3-month research visits at the University of Tokyo (2009) and the University of Sydney (2012). Prior to joining the MCF in January of 2016, she was a post-doctoral researcher at UCSB, and she worked as a Materials Engineer in the Elliott Group.  

For the past 14 months, Dr. Clark has skillfully led the MCF through a difficult pandemic time, as the facility went from a complete shutdown in March of 2020 to a nearly normal usage level this summer. She has been actively involved in all aspects of running the MCF, from training users on X-ray instruments, scanning electron microscopes, and focused ion beam microscopes, to interacting with companies, facilitating access for service engineers under restricted access conditions, contributing to internal instrumentation acquisition proposals, and participating in monthly facility oversight meetings, to name just a few. This fall, she will become a member of the newly established MCF Steering Committee, which will oversee the facility finances and provide long-term guidance with respect to instrument acquisitions.  

We are fortunate to have Dr. Clark as our new MCF Managing Director and we wish her all the best in this role. Please do not hesitate to stop by the facility when you have a chance to congratulate her on this promotion.

Regards, 
Marc De Graef
MCF Faculty Director