Wolk Wins Women Moving Forward Award

Department of Materials Science and Engineering graduate student Jennifer Wolk, advised by Professor Lourdes Salamanca-Riba, has won the 2009 Naval Sea Systems Command's Women Moving Forward Award for her work in friction stir welding, an alternative to traditional gas-metal arc welding. Her research focused on using friction stir processing to modify the microstructure and strength of alloys used in propellers. Wolk, a materials engineer at the Naval Surface Warfare Center (NSWC), Carderock Division, is currently pursuing her Ph.D. on friction stir welding of near-alpha titanium at the University of Maryland.

Wolk has also been very active in Navy, nonprofit, and community engineering outreach efforts, including the NSWC's National Student Leadership Conference, the FIRST Robotics program, the Federal Asian Pacific American Council Conference, and the Fairfax County Science Fair. She also led a team of students from Burning Tree Elementary School in Bethesda, Md., to win seven trophies at the LEGO® League Robotics Challenge.

Published August 12, 2009