Samuel R. Scholes Award Lecture

John C. Mauro, Ph.D.
Department of Materials Science and Engineering, The Pennsylvania State University

"Glass is a lifelong passion for me, starting from my childhood in the Alfred-Almond area. In this presentation, I reflect on my personal journey in glass, from attending Scholes Lectures as a student at Alfred University through my return to Alfred today. I share my thoughts about how my education at Alfred University prepared me for success as both an industrial research scientist at Corning Incorporated and later in academia as a Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at Penn State. I review several advances in glass physics and chemistry made during this time, including the development of new methods for designing and understanding industrial glass systems. I conclude with some thoughts about the pursuit of industrial vs. academic careers." -John c. Mauro

Dr. John C. Mauro is Dorothy Pate Enright Professor and Associate Head for Graduate Education in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at The Pennsylvania State University. John earned a B.S. in Glass Engineering Science (2001), B.A. in Computer Science (2001), and Ph.D. in Glass Science (2006), all from Alfred University. He joined Corning Incorporated in 1999 and served in multiple roles there, including Senior Research Manager of the Glass Research department, where he led a group of 15 scientists and technicians in the development of new glass and glass-ceramic products. John joined the faculty at Penn State in 2017 and is a world-recognized expert in fundamental and applied glass science, statistical mechanics, computational and condensed matter physics, thermodynamics, and the topology of disordered networks.

John is the inventor or co-inventor of several new glass compositions for Corning, including Corning Gorilla® Glass products. John is a pioneer in the use of physics-based and machine learning models for the design of new glassy materials. He is the inventor of new models for supercooled liquid and glass viscosity, glass structure and topology, relaxation behavior, and thermal and mechanical properties. He is co-author of Fundamentals of Inorganic Glasses, 3rd ed. (Elsevier, 2019), the definitive textbook on glass science and technology, and author of Materials Kinetics: Transport and Rate Phenomena (Elsevier, 2021), the most comprehensive textbook on kinetic phenomena in materials science.

John was awarded the N.J. Kreidl Award (2006) from the American Ceramic Society, Glass and Optical Materials Division. In 2010, Penn State University and the International Commission on Glass (ICG) awarded John the W.A. Weyl International Glass Science Award. In 2011, John received the V. Gottardi Prize from the ICG, and in 2012 he was selected as the inaugural recipient of the Sir Alastair Pilkington Award from the Society of Glass Technology. In 2013, John was awarded the S. Donald Stookey Award for Exploratory Research from Corning Incorporated. In 2015, John became a Fellow of the American Ceramic Society and was recipient of the R.M. Fulrath Award. In the same year, he was also awarded the W.H. Zachariasen Award from the Journal of Non-Crystalline Solids. In 2016, the National Institute of Ceramic Engineers (NICE) selected John as winner of the Karl Schwartzwalder Professional Achievement in Ceramic Engineering (PACE) Award. John is also winner of Corning’s Ethnically Diverse Group of Employees (EDGE) Excellence Award (2016) for promoting diversity at Corning. More recently, John was elected as a Fellow of the Society of Glass Technology (2019) and is recipient of the Faculty of the Year Award (2019) at Penn State Materials Science and Engineering. John is also recipient of the Paul F. Robertson Award for Earth and Mineral Sciences Research Breakthrough of the Year (2020), the Faculty Scholar Medal from Penn State (2021), the Wilson Award for Excellence in Teaching (2022), the Fiat Lux Award from Alfred University (2022), and the Wulff Lectureship from MIT (2022). John also won first place in the Penn State Tech Tournament (2023) for the invention of LionGlassTM, a novel glass family that lowers the carbon footprint of glass manufacturing by ~50% while significantly improving mechanical performance.

John is the author of over 360 peer-reviewed publications and has given over 200 presentations at international conferences and seminars. His publications have been cited over 18,500 times, with an h-index of 60. John has 80 granted U.S. patents and several additional patents pending. John is Editor-in-Chief of Journal of the American Ceramic Society. John is a Member of the National Academy of Engineering, the National Academy of Inventors, and the World Academy of Ceramics.
Outside of his technical work, John is also a highly sought-after reviewer of speculative fiction and serves as Assistant Editor at Before We Go Blog and Grimdark Magazine. John has interviewed a multitude of well-known authors, including Patrick Rothfuss, Mark Lawrence, Fonda Lee, Gemma Amor, Jeff VanderMeer, Cassandra Khaw, Anna Smith Spark, and many more.

Dr. Scholes served Alfred University for over 40 years.
Dean (1946–1948)
Associate Dean (1948–1952)
Department Head, Glass Technology (1932–1946)
He established the first glass science program in the United States at the College of Ceramics in 1932.

“…let us…each do our part in seeing that the materials inventions of our age are made to serve the high needs and destinies of the race…” -Samuel R. Scholes

Alfred University awarded Dr. Scholes an honorary Doctor of Science degree for his contributions as a scholar, educator, administrator, and glass scientist. His name was also chosen for the Scholes Library of Ceramics, and the Samuel R. Scholes Lecture Series was established in honor of his interest in the history and philosophy of science. As author of Modern Glass Practice, a highly acclaimed book on glass making (published continuously seven times between 1935 and 1975), Dr. Scholes helped standardize the process of glassmaking in the United States. He was author of three other books: Glass Industry Handbook, Glass Tank Furnaces, and Opportunities in Ceramics.

During his 19 years in the glass industry, he championed automatic manufacturing and general control of raw materials and standardization. He held patents for development of an improved glassmelting pot, a method of stirring optical glass, and extraction of potash from feldspar. Dr. Scholes was educated at Ripon College (BA, 1905) and Yale University (Ph.D., 1911). He was a poet, scholar, and a scientific educator of the highest caliber who believed in glass as the "eye of science, the carrier of light."