Martin Harmer
Alcoa Foundation Professor Emeritus of Material Science and Engineering
Director of the Lehigh Nano|Human Interfaces Presidential Research Initiative
Senior Research Scientist of Materials Science and Engineering
Email address: mph2@lehigh.edu
Degree Path: D.Sc. Materials Science, Leeds University, England, 1995
Degree Path: Ph.D. Ceramic Science, Leeds University, England, 1980
Degree Path: International Graduate Scholar, Electron Microscopy, UC Berkeley, 1978
Degree Path: B.Sc. 1 st Class Honors, Ceramics, Leeds University, England, 1976

Martin Harmer is the Alcoa Foundation Professor Emeritus of Material Science and Engineering and Senior Research Scientist at Lehigh University, and Director of the Lehigh Nano|Human Interfaces Presidential Research Initiative. He studied ceramics at Leeds University in England from 1972 to 1980, where he graduated with a first class honors B.Sc. degree and a Ph.D. in ceramics, and he also received a D.Sc. degree from Leeds in 1995. He conducted his doctoral research on the fast-firing of pure and doped alpha alumina under the supervision of Professor Sir Richard Brook. During his Ph.D. he spent one year on a graduate fellowship at the University of California at Berkeley, learning advanced techniques in transmission electron microscopy under the guidance of Professor Gareth Thomas. 

 

Dr. Harmer joined Lehigh University in 1980. He directed the Lehigh Center for Advanced Materials and Nanotechnology until 2015. From 2015-17 he was Senior Faculty Advisor for Research Initiatives in the Rossin College of Engineering before taking up his current position as Director of the Lehigh Nano|Human Interfaces Presidential Research Initiative. He also currently Directs a 5-year $25M Cooperative Agreement research project with the Army Research Laboratory on “Lightweight High Entropy Alloy Discovery (LHEAD)”, in collaboration with The Ohio State University and Louisiana State University.
 

Dr. Harmer has supervised 65 Ph.D. students and 25 post-doctoral researchers and published over 300 papers. His research has focused on understanding the fundamental mechanisms of interfacial transport and microstructure development in inorganic materials. His work has led to fundamental discoveries about the nature of grain boundaries, including the breakthrough experimental discovery that grain boundaries exhibit phase-like behavior (called “grain boundary complexions”), which has provided new insight into long-standing mysteries in material science, such as the origin of abnormal grain growth in ceramics and the cause of grain boundary embrittlement in metal alloys. He has received numerous awards including the American Ceramic Society’s Distinguished Life Member Award, the W. David Kingery Lifetime Achievement Award, and the Robert B. Sosman Lecture Award.


Harmer is a United States Coast Guard Licensed Merchant Marine Officer and the Captain of a 39ft sportfishing vessel called the “Cheeky Monkey III”.

Martin Harmer, Ph.D., is the Alcoa Foundation Professor of Materials Science and Engineering, and Director of the Nano/Human Interface Presidential Research Initiative. His group researches the science of ceramic powder processing, particularly sintering, the understanding and control of relationships between microstructure and properties of advanced ceramics, and the kinetic engineering of interfaces (grain boundaries and surfaces) to tailor their atomic transport rates, structure, and properties. Dr. Harmer is also internationally recognized for his role in the discovery that internal interfaces have complex three-dimensional structures called "complexions." He is a Distinguished Life Member of the American Ceramic Society (ACerS), and has won numerous national and international awards, including the ACS' Kingery Lifetime Achievement Award as well as its highest honor for basic science achievement, the Robert B. Sosman Award.
 
As Director of the NHI Initiative, Dr. Harmer oversees the progress and future direction of the NHI Initiative. His specific research interest of nanoscale interfaces and advanced electron microscopy techniques were also aspects of the initial proposal to fund NHI to the Lehigh administration. Dr. Harmer and his group were increasingly limited by the conventional research approach of nanoscale characterization, and he was seeking new methods to advance nanoscience and accelerate scientific discovery.

  • Ceramic Processing and Sintering
  • Advanced Electron Microscopy
  • Grain Boundaries and Complexions
  • Nanomaterials and Nanocomposites

 

Google Scholar