Biographical Sketch
Dr. Hofmeister began his career in materials science
at Pratt-Whitney Government Products Division in
West Palm Beach, Florida, where he worked on the
Powder Metal Blades and Vanes Program sponsored by
DARPA and the USAF. This program used consolidated,
rapidly solidified powder to fabricate advanced
turbine blades and vanes. He also was a Deputy
Program Manager for the Advance Metal Removal
Initiative at Pratt-Whitney GPD. Hofmeister returned
to Vanderbilt University in 1982 and received his
Ph.D. in Materials Science in 1987 under the
direction of Prof. R.J. Bayuzick. He has remained at
Vanderbilt as a research faculty member. Professor
Hofmeister's research is in the area of nucleation
and solidification kinetics. He has participated in
three space flight experiments sponsored by NASA to
study the effects of fluid flow on nucleation using
the TEMPUS facility on IML-2, MSL-1, and MSL-1R.
Hofmeister was principal investigator for the TEMPUS
Incandescence Measurement Instrument Project, which
designed and implemented an infrared pyrometer on
the existing TEMPUS flight hardware. TEMPUS
experiments were conducted by "telescience"
operation in low earth orbit using modeling and
simulation software, which Hofmeister developed for
the space flight experiments. With Professor
Bayuzick, he has developed a method to determine
nucleation kinetics on levitated metallic melts
using statistical techniques. This methodology was
used for the evaluation of data from the space
flight experiments.
In solidification kinetics, Hofmeister has pioneered
the use of ultra high-speed thermal imaging in the
observation of solidification at high undercooling.
A 1MHz thermal imaging array was developed by
Hofmeister to track solidification at 50 meters per
second. This equipment was also used to study the
impact, spreading, and solidification of molten
metal drops. He has also studied the solidification
behavior of High Temperature Oxide Superconductors,
and was the first to report the ability to form
superconducting materials directly from the
undercooled melt. He worked on methods for
deposition of undercooled liquid ceramics through a
grant from the Office of Naval Research.
Hofmeister worked with the Sandia National Labs LENSTM CRADA
on development of thermal imaging tools for
understanding the thermal behavior of direct metal
deposition processes. This work led to a system for
closed loop feedback control of the process,
significantly increasing the uniformity of deposited
materials. The closed loop feedback control was
granted US Patent number 6,459,951, October 1, 2002.
As a member of the LENS CRADA team, Hofmeister was
awarded the President’s Gold Quality Award in 1999.
He is now working with NASA Langley to develop
free-form fabrication using an electron beam process
for future NASA missions.
Professor Hofmeister is working with the Diamond
Microelectronics Group at Vanderbilt University on
the synthesis of diamond films and carbon nanotubes
for field emission, diode and triode applications.
He collaborates with the Vanderbilt Institute for
Integrative Biosystems Research and Education in the
area of fabrication for hybrid bio-silicon devices
and is a member of the Vanderbilt Institute for
Nanoscale Science and Engineering.
Hofmeister is an expert in optical pyrometry,
high-speed thermal imaging and laser materials
processing. He is a past chairman of the
Solidification Committee of TMS, a past member of
the Journal of Metals editorial staff, and served on
the ASM Action in Education Team. He is active in
professional organizations. Currently, Professor
Hofmeister is the director of the Center for Laser
Applications at the University of Tennessee Space
Institute in Tullahoma, Tennessee. He is engaged in
research using lasers for materials modification,
including surface alloying and laser additive
manufacture. |
