Assistant Professor Pinar Acar has received a 2024 Frontiers of Materials Award from The Minerals, Metals, & Materials Society (TMS). She was recognized and received a plaque at the awards ceremony on March 6 in Orlando, Florida.

The award is given competitively to a top-performing early career professional capable of organizing a Frontiers of Materials Event comprising a hot or emergent technical topic at the TMS Annual Meeting & Exhibition. Acar organized the event, “Physics-Informed Machine Learning for Modeling and Design of Materials and Manufacturing Processes,” held on March 4.

She delivered a keynote lecture during the Frontiers of Materials Event entitled, “Inverse Design for Crystal Plasticity Model Identification via Physics-Informed Neural Networks.” This presentation included work from Acar’s Advanced Structures and Optimization Lab which uses machine learning and physics principles to optimize alloys to specific tasks.

Acar has received global recognition for her work, previously recognized as one of Ten Outstanding Young Persons in the World by Junior Chamber International Istanbul, and also winning a National Science Foundation CAREER Award.