Ji-Cheng ‘JC’ Zhao is the Department Chair of Materials Science and Engineering (MSE) and Minta Martin Professor of Engineering at the University of Maryland – College Park (UMD). Before joining UMD in July 2019, Zhao was a professor at the MSE Department of the Ohio State University (OSU) for about ten years (1/2008 to 6/2019). He took a leave from OSU from 2014 to 2017 to serve as a Program Director at the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) of the U.S. Department of Energy where he launched and managed a wide range of projects totaling about $100M to develop technologies aimed at increasing energy efficiency and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Prior joining to OSU, he was a materials scientist and project/team leader at GE Global Research Center in Schenectady, New York for 12 years (1995 to 2007). Zhao’s research focuses are on design of advanced alloys and coatings, high-throughput materials science methodologies, determination of phase diagrams and other materials properties, computational thermodynamics, and also hydrogen/energy storage materials. In addition to many materials innovations, he pioneered the development of a diffusion-multiple approach and co-developed several materials property microscopy tools for accelerated materials discovery and development. The invention of ultrafast laser materials property microscopy by the Zhao-Cahill team was recognized as one of the eight finalists for the 2018 Berthold Leibinger Innovationspreis, the highest remunerated prizes dedicated to laser technology innovations. Zhao was the recipient of the 2021 William Hume-Rothery Award which “is presented annually to recognize a scientific leader for exceptional scholarly contributions to the science of alloys” by the Minerals, Metals and Materials Society (TMS). A three-day symposium was held in his honor during the 150th TMS Annual Meeting in March 2021. Zhao is a Fellow of both ASM International and the Materials Research Society (MRS). He served on the Subcommittee on the Materials Genome Initiative of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) from 2014 to 2017, and on the Board of Trustees of ASM International for the 2019-2022 term.
Zhao is an inventor with 49 issued US patents covering a wide range of materials, processes, and systems. He was the 2001 winner of the prestigious Albert W. Hull Award from GE Global Research with a citation “for his leadership skills in advancing innovative, state-of-the-art development methodologies that aim to decrease cycle time for materials discovery while increasing robustness of the work. He also was recognized for his expertise and leadership regarding the critical nature of coatings and high temperature materials, and for his enormous energy and perseverance in solving real business challenges.” One of the alloys he co-invented is widely used in GE electricity-generation gas turbines.
Zhao brings rich engineering, innovation, education and leadership experience from industry (12 years at GE), government (4 years at ARPA-E), and academia (both at UMD and OSU) to serve ERVA.