The David Turnbull Lectureship recognizes the career contribution of a scientist to fundamental understanding of the science of materials through experimental and/or theoretical research. In the spirit of the life work of David Turnbull, writing and lecturing also can be factors in the selection process.

The past decade has witnessed intense interest in the materials science of chemically complex, concentrated alloys. Although it is often assumed complex solid solutions are stabilized by ideal configurational entropies, recent investigations have raised the prospect of pronounced chemical short-range order (SRO) with possibly significant effects on properties. This lecture will review mechanisms underlying SRO formation and present results of simulations and collaborative experimental studies, exploring its impact on deformation mechanisms, metastability and materials design.

About Mark Asta

Mark Asta received his PhD degree from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1993. He subsequently joined Sandia National Laboratories, where he was a postdoctoral researcher and then a senior member of the technical staff. In 2000, he joined the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at Northwestern University as an associate professor, receiving tenure in 2003. In 2005, he moved to the University of California, Davis, as a full professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, where he became Vice Chair in 2008. In 2010, Asta joined the Department of Materials Science and Engineering (MSE) at the University of California, Berkeley (UCB), with a faculty scientist appointment at Lawrence Berkley National Laboratory (LBNL). He served as Department Chair of MSE at UCB from July 2012 to December 2017, and Materials Sciences Division Director at LBNL from January 2018 to December 2022. He currently serves as the Executive Associate Dean in the College of Engineering at UCB.