Rate My Professor Erich Kisi

Professor Erich Kisi is an Emeritus Professor in the School of Engineering (Mechanical Engineering) at the University of Newcastle, Australia. He completed a Bachelor of Metallurgy with First Class Honours from the University of Newcastle in 1984, alongside six years as a trainee metallurgist in industry. His PhD in Metallurgy, undertaken under an Australian Institute of Nuclear Science and Engineering studentship, involved experiments at the HIFAR nuclear reactor at ANSTO. He then held a National Research Fellowship at ANSTO (1988-1990) studying phase transitions and synthesis methods in zirconia ceramics, followed by a senior research fellowship at Griffith University (1990-1993) working on metals for hydrogen storage. Returning to the University of Newcastle in 1993 as a lecturer, he progressed to senior lecturer (1997), associate professor (2001), and professor (2007). His research experience spans process and physical metallurgy, metal hydrides, intermetallic compounds, and advanced ceramics including zirconia, piezoelectrics, and MAX phases.

Professor Kisi specializes in in-situ neutron and X-ray diffraction techniques to study crystal structures and microstructures of engineering materials under extreme conditions, such as temperatures from 4 K to 2600 K, pressures up to 2.3 GPa, hydrogen atmospheres, and electric fields. He has authored books such as Applications of Neutron Powder Diffraction (2008, with C.J. Howard) and Zirconia Engineering Ceramics: Old Challenges - New Ideas (1998), along with chapters on miscibility gap alloys for thermal energy storage (2018) and stress-induced transformations (2023). His publications include articles on thermionic emission, MAB phases, and granular stress distributions. With over 1,300 citations and an h-index of 21, his work averages more than 16 citations per paper. He leads a research team including PhD students and technical staff, securing an annual budget of $300,000 and access to facilities like ILL (France), ISIS (UK), and OPAL (Australia). Collaborations involve ANSTO, ESS (Sweden), and Cambridge University. Recognized with multiple AINSE awards (2009) and the Neutron Beam Excellence Award for Outstanding Research (2007), he contributes to the Newcastle Institute for Energy and Resources.