Our goal is to build upon recognized research strengths, including energy production and distribution; transportation and logistics; manufacturing and materials, and accelerate collaborative research in areas such as autonomous systems; sustainable systems and structures; engineering for human health; computing and information; and cyber-physical systems and security.
The University of Kentucky is one of only eight universities in the country with a major medical center featuring six health sciences colleges, and the full spectrum of academic colleges on one continuous campus. The close proximity of such a large range of programs is an incubator for inter- and transdisciplinary initiatives. Discoveries from these collaborations allow our researchers to address the needs of the citizens of the Commonwealth of Kentucky, our nation and our world.
John Balk, William T. Bryan Professor of Materials Engineering and associate dean for research and graduate studies, has established an outstanding record of research productivity, quality and impact that places him amongst our most distinguished faculty in the Pigman College of Engineering. Balk’s research focus is the elucidation of structure-property relationships in the behavior of metals, alloys and covalent materials, with current projects related to size effects and mechanical behavior, high-entropy alloys, and functional properties of thermionic dispenser cathodes. Balk has served as chair for the Gordon Research Conference on Thin Film and Small-Scale Mechanical Behavior, and in 2015 was elected one of five national co-chairs for the fall meeting of the Materials Research Society, the largest professional organization for materials scientists and engineers.
