Meet our researchers
Industry collaboration with McMaster’s Department of Metallurgy and Metallurgical Engineering (now Materials Science and Engineering) was formalized as long ago as 1962.
At the McMaster Steel Research Centre, we continue this tradition of strong collaboration.
Our history
Industry collaboration with McMaster’s Department of Metallurgy and Metallurgical Engineering (Now Materials Science and Engineering) was formalized as long ago as 1962 with the establishment of the Stelco Chair in Metallurgy, held in succession through the 90s by Robert Ward, Jack Kirkaldy, and Wei-Kao Lu, who together made significant contributions in the fields of phase transformations and primary iron and steelmaking.
Starting in 1997, Gordon Irons continued this tradition with a strong focus on steelmaking process metallurgy as Dofasco/NSERC Industrial Research Chair in Ferrous Metallurgy. In 2000, the success of this motivated the expansion of the Research Chair model for industrial collaboration into the Steel Research Centre. The Centre now combines the efforts of four steel-focused research chairs in the Departments of Materials Science and Engineering, Chemical Engineering and Mechanical Engineering with strong participation from additional faculty members in these three departments. Dr. Irons acted as the Centre’s Founding Director from 2000 to 2014 and was succeeded by Ken Coley from 2014 to 2019, when Joe McDermid was appointed Director.
