Alfred University student honored before Scholes Lecture
An Alfred University student was recognized for academic excellence prior to the annual Samuel R. Scholes Lecture held Thursday morning, April 6. Elijah Hammarlund was presented with the Scholes Scholar Award, which is given each year to an Alfred University engineering student who had the highest grade point average after completion of his or her first year at Alfred University.
Hammarlund is a junior biomaterials engineering major from Florence, MA, and is the son of Alicia Spence and Nooni Hammarlund. He has a perfect 4.0 GPA. For being named Scholes Scholar, he was presented with a $250 award.
Alfred University alumnus Jeffrey T. Kohli, director of glass research at Corning Incorporated, delivered the Scholes Lecture on Thursday. Kohli earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in ceramic engineering, in 1986, and 1987, respectively, and a doctoral degree in glass science in 1991, all from Alfred University.
In his lecture, titled “Invention, Innovation, and Industrialization,” Kohli discussed Corning’s long history in the field of glass and ceramic science and the role its research has played in the development of groundbreaking innovations and products.
Those products had significant impacts on areas such as lighting (development of glass light bulbs, manufactured using the Corning-invented ribbon machine), communications (glass optical fiber), air quality (ceramic filters which help automobile exhausts systems meet tighter emissions standards), healthcare (the development of glass that is less prone to defects which can be used to make vessels containing vaccines; Valor Glass, invented at Corning, is used to store COVID vaccines); and the display industry (liquid crystal display (LCD) screens for televisions, computer and hand-held devices; Gorilla Glass, the durable glass materials used for the screens on smartphones, tablets, and wearable technology like the Apple Watch).
The Scholes Lecture Series was established in 1982 by alumni of Alfred University to honor the late Samuel R. Scholes, who in 1932 established the first glass science program in the United States at the New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University. He served as dean, associate dean, head of the Department of Glass Technology, and professor of glass science.
Olivia Gilbert, a ceramic engineering major at Alfred University, discusses her research with Anthony DeCeanne, a research scientist at Corning Incorporated, at a poster presentation event held Thursday at McMahon Engineering Building. The event followed the Scholes Lecture hosted by the University earlier in the day.