PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Sharvan Kumar, professor of engineering, is a 2015 recipient of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation research award.

The foundation grants up to 100 such awards each year to researchers from around the world to support collaborative projects with scientists and researchers in Germany. The awards are granted to researchers "whose fundamental discoveries, new theories, or insights have had a significant impact on their own discipline and who are expected to continue producing cutting-edge achievements in the future."

Kumar was recognized for his work with metallic materials for structural applications. The award will support ongoing research and enable new collaborations in high-strength steels for automotive applications and high-temperature materials for use in aircraft engines and other aerospace applications. Kumar will collaborate with Martin Heilmaier of the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology and Dierk Raabe and Frank Stein of the Max-Planck-Institut für Eisenforschung in Düsseldorf.

"I am very excited to receive this prestigious award as it provides a wonderful opportunity to launch new research collaborations to advance the field of structural materials for automotive and aerospace applications," Kumar said. "These collaborations will also stimulate interactions and foster the exchange of ideas between students and postdocs at both institutions."

Kumar, who joined the Brown faculty in 1995, has led research projects supported by the Office of Naval Research, the U.S. Army Research Office, the National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy, and other government and private organizations. Before coming to Brown, he was a senior staff scientist at Martin Marietta Laboratories, where he was a co-inventor of a family of aerospace aluminum-lithium alloys, one of which was subsequently used by NASA to build space shuttle fuel tanks since Discovery's June 1998 mission.

By Kevin Stacey