Sabyasachi Sen, the Blacutt-Underwood Professor and Chair of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at the University of California, Davis, has received the 2026 George W. Morey Award from the American Ceramic Society, or ACerS.
Presented by the organization’s Glass & Optical Materials Division, the award recognizes outstanding, original contributions to glass science and technology and honors excellence in published experimental or theoretical research by an individual, according to a university release.
“The George W, Morey Award is the highest award of the Glass and Optical Materials Division of the American Ceramic Society,” Sen said. “Such a recognition from my peers and my research community means a lot at this point in my career.”
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The Indian American expert obtained his master’s degree in geological sciences from the University of Houston, where he developed an interest in natural glasses formed during volcanic eruptions and meteorite impacts, leading him to pursue glass science and technology.
After a short stint at Princeton University studying thermodynamic measurements on glasses and glass-ceramics, he went on to Stanford University to study glass structure and relaxation phenomena using nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopic techniques, earning his PhD and completing a postdoctoral fellowship.
After briefly serving on the faculty in the Department of Physics at Aberystwyth University, Wales, Sen worked in industry as a senior scientist at Corning Inc., developing glasses for long-distance telecommunications and flat-panel displays.
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He joined the UC Davis Department of Materials Science and Engineering in 2004. Sen has served as chair since 2025 and has held the Blacutt-Underwood Professorship in Materials Science since 2020.
His current research interests include the development and application of state-of-the-art spectroscopic and rheological techniques to study atomic structure and dynamical phenomena in glasses, glass-forming liquids and ceramics.
He has authored and co-authored 288 scientific papers on glasses and ceramics, holds seven patents, and is the recipient of the Woldemar A. Weyl International Glass Science Award, the Darshana and Arun Varshneya Frontiers of Glass Science Lecture Award and the Otto Schott Research Award.