Dr. J. Brian Jordon, Ph.D., (Mississippi State University) is an Associate Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at The University of Alabama. Dr. Jordon has extensive experience in fatigue and fracture of metals and in particular, he has studied fatigue in friction stir welding for nearly a decade. His other interests include, constitutive modeling of plasticity and damage, process-structure-property-performance relationships, modeling of welding and joining, and solid-state additive manufacturing and processing. Dr. Jordon has published over 90 refereed journal articles and conference proceedings in these and related areas. His research has been supported by the Department of Energy, the Department of Defense, the State of Alabama, and various private industries. Professionally, Dr. Jordon has organized numerous symposia and chaired committees at the annual ASME International Mechanical Engineering Congress & Exposition (IMECE) and The Minerals, Metals, & Materials Society (TMS) meetings. In 2014, Dr. Jordon was a recipient of the TMS Young Professional Development award. Recently, he was a finalist for The University of Alabama President’s Faculty Research Award (2017). He currently serves on the editorial board of Materials and Manufacturing Processes journal. Prior to coming to The University of Alabama, Dr. Jordon was an Interim Associate Director and an Assistant Research Professor at the Center for Advanced Vehicular Systems at Mississippi State University.
Robert Amaro's research focuses on characterization and modelling of fatigue in metals, with particular focus on coupled environmental-fatigue mechanisms.
Dr. Paul G. Allison is an Assistant Professor in the Mechanical Engineering Department at The University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, AL. Dr. Allison has nearly a decade of widespread experiences on both the computational and experimental fatigue behavior of metallic materials, and specifically fatigue of friction stir welding. Dr. Allison is also pioneering computational and experimental research on the MELD solid-state additive manufacturing process, and is involved in characterizing the structure-property-processing relations of a variety of material systems to support basic and applied research projects. Dr. Allison has published over 80 refereed journal articles, book chapters, technical reports and conference papers on these and similar areas. Professionally, Dr. Allison organized the first MELD User Group Meeting and Workshop in 2018, and he has also been involved in organizing symposiums and sessions at The Minerals, Metals, & Materials Society (TMS) annual meetings, Nanotechnology for Defense, the Society of Experimental Mechanics annual meeting, and ASME conferences. He serves on multiple technical committees for TMS, and is the ASME Constitutive Equations technical committee secretary. Prior to joining The University of Alabama, Dr. Allison performed research at the US Army Engineer Research and Development Center (ERDC), where he received the US Army ERDC - Research and Development Achievement Award for 2013 and 2014, the 2014 Department of the Army Commander’s Award for Civilian Service, the 2011 Department of the Army Achievement Medal for Civilian Service, and the 2013 Department of the Army Research & Development Achievement Award for Technical Excellence. Recently, Dr. Allison was a finalist for The University of Alabama President’s Faculty Research Award (2017).
Dr. Harish Rao, Ph.D., is currently ORISE postdoctoral fellow at DOE’s National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) in Albany, Oregon, USA. Prior to working at NETL, Dr. Rao worked as a Canadian Govt. Laboratory Visiting fellow and later as a Research Scientist at CanmetMATERIALS in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. Dr. Rao holds a Doctor of Philosophy degree in mechanical engineering from The University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, Alabama, USA. Dr. Rao has a research background in process development and fatigue characterization of various weld and riveted joints. Particularly, Dr. Rao has worked extensively on fatigue characterization of dissimilar friction stir welds, dissimilar resistance spot welds and dissimilar self-piercing riveted joints. Dr. Rao has published 20 referred journal articles and conference proceedings and one book chapter in related areas.
