SUNY designates Alfred University's Scott Misture '90, '94 'Distinguished Professor'

ALFRED, NY – Scott Misture, Inamori Professor of Materials Science and Engineering in the Inamori School of Engineering at Alfred University, has been appointed to the rank of “Distinguished Professor” by the State University of New York (SUNY) Board of Trustees. Misture, an Alfred University alumnus (B.S. ceramic engineering 1990; Ph.D., ceramic science, 1994) has been teaching at his alma mater since 1996 and is internationally-recognized as a pioneer in the development and application of materials analysis tools to understand ceramics and glasses at high temperatures.

Over the course of a 25-year teaching career at Alfred University, Misture has authored “hundreds of high impact publications, (secured) millions in sponsored research funding, and has touched hundreds, if not thousands of students with high impact research mentoring. He was a pioneer and created material characterization techniques for ceramics that have influenced the field tremendously,” Gabrielle Gaustad, dean of the Inamori School of Engineering, wrote in nominating Misture for the designation.

Misture was on the leading edge of the growth of the New York State College of Ceramics (NYSCC) graduate research funding in the 1990s, having won the first prestigious National Science Foundation CAREER award on campus, and his extensive industry and government funding has only grown since then. He was appointed the School of Engineering’s first major endowed professorship (lnamori Professorship) and has built and maintains the largest research portfolio of any professor on campus.

His “ground breaking research findings have been supported with years of successful industrial, federal, and state funding,” Gaustad noted in her nomination. He has secured in excess of $10 million in research funding, from the U.S. Department of Energy, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and the National Science Foundation (NSF), as well as from private industry. He was instrumental in securing additional funding for the High Temperature Materials Characterization Laboratory and the Center for Ceramic Research, Education, and Technology Enterprise (CREATE) Center on the Alfred University campus. He was the principal investigator on an NSF award that landed the University a $2 million Transmission Electronic Microscope and $500,000 Focused Ion Beam sampled preparation system that has the NYSCC competing with world class characterization facilities.

“As a professor, Dr. Misture has impacted undergraduate and graduate engineers at the New York State College of Ceramics,” Gaustad wrote. “He teaches one of our fundamental characterization classes and labs every single year to all of our juniors. He also teaches several advanced graduate courses to our M.S. and Ph.D. students in Ceramic Engineering, Glass Science, and Material Science and Engineering. His evaluations emphasize his meticulous nature and high bar for our engineers, as well as unwavering encouragement to get involved in research. He is frequently the advisor for a great number of our senior thesis projects. For a professor with such a large research profile and portfolio to devote significant time to undergraduate courses and research is truly distinguishing.”

In her nomination, Gaustad also cited Misture’s service to his profession. Misture serves the Inamori School of Engineering as chair of the Curriculum and Teaching committee as well as chair of the Ceramic Engineering, Glass Science, and Material Science and Engineering divisions. He serves the materials science community as a principal editor of the Journal of Materials Research and has served in leadership positions (Secretary, Vice Chair, Chair Elect and Chair) of the Basic Sciences Division of the American Ceramic Society (ACerS) and in volunteer roles with the Materials Research Society, the International Centre for Diffraction Data, the American Crystallographic Association, and the National Academy of Sciences.