Irene Jane Beyerlein (born November 1971) is an American materials scientist who is the Mehrabian Interdisciplinary Endowed Chair at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She is a Fellow of the Materials Research Society.

Early life and education

Beyerlein was born in Los Alamos, New Mexico.^[1] She completed undergraduate studies at Clemson University. After her junior year she realized that she was interested mathematics and materials, and decided to major in mechanical engineering.^[2] She moved to Cornell University for graduate studies, where she studied fibrous composites.^[3] After earning her doctorate, Beyerlein joined the Los Alamos National Laboratory as a J. R. Oppenheimer Fellow.^[4] She spent three years as a research fellow before being appointed to the faculty at the LANL.^[2]

Research and career

Beyerlein worked as a theorist at Los Alamos National Laboratory for several years, where she was co-director of the Energy Frontiers Research Center.^[5] In 2016, Beyerlein joined the University of California, Santa Barbara.^[5]

Beyerlein's research considers the design of materials that can withstand extreme conditions, including high stress, temperature and strain.^[6] She has studied how plastic deformations propagate through materials and how strain localization can give rise to the initiation of slip bands.^[6] She is particularly interested in how lightweight materials that can improve fuel economy in aircraft.^[7][8]

Beyerlein is the editor of Scripta Materialia^[4] and on the editorial board of Acta Materialia.^[9] In 2019, Beyerlein was recognized as a Brimacombe Medalist by The Minerals, Metals & Materials Society for her "groundbreaking work on the plasticity of HCP metals and metal nanocomposites as well as for her commitment to mentorship of the next generation of materials scientists."^[10][11]

To date, Beyerlein has published over 500 academic manuscripts, and has been cited over 20,000 times, resulting in an h-index and i10-index of 82 and 301 respectively.^[12]

Awards and honors

• 2012 Los Alamos National Laboratory Fellows' Prize^[13]
• 2013 International Journal of Plasticity Young Research Award^[4]
• 2014 Distinguished Mentor Award^[14]
• 2016 NSF ADVANCE STEM Professor Fellowship^[7]
• 2018 The Minerals, Metals & Materials Society Distinguished Scientist/Engineering Award^[15]
• 2018 The Minerals, Metals & Materials Society Brimacombe Medalist^[16][11]
• 2019 AIME Champion H. Mathewson Award ^[11]
• 2021 Elected Fellow of the Materials Research Society^[17]
• 2021 LMD Magnesium Technology Award - Best Poster^[18]

Selected publications

• J.Y Huang; Y.T Zhu; X.Z Liao; I.J Beyerlein; M.A Bourke; T.E Mitchell (January 2003). "Microstructure of cryogenic treated M2 tool steel". Materials Science and Engineering A. 339 (1–2): 241–244. doi:10.1016/S0921-5093(02)00165-X. ISSN 0921-5093. Wikidata Q57944798.
• Beyerlein, I.J.; Tomé, C.N. (May 2008). "A dislocation-based constitutive law for pure Zr including temperature effects". International Journal of Plasticity. 24 (5): 867–895. doi:10.1016/j.ijplas.2007.07.017. ISSN 0749-6419.
• Beyerlein, Irene J.; Tth, Lszl S. (2009), "Texture Evolution in Equal-Channel Angular Extrusion", Bulk Nanostructured Materials, Weinheim, Germany: Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, pp. 387–421, doi:10.1002/9783527626892.ch18, ISBN 9783527626892, retrieved 2021-09-08
• Marcel Risse, Martin Lentz, Christoph Fahrenson, Walter Reimers, Marko Knezevic and Irene J. Beyerlein. Elevated Temperature Effects on the Plastic Anisotropy of an Extruded Mg-4 Wt Pct Li Alloy: Experiments and Polycrystal Modeling. Metallurgical and Materials Transactions A volume 48, pages 446–458 (2017). doi:https://doi.org/10.1007/s11661-016-3780-4

Personal life

Beyerlein is a road cyclist, and was named Los Alamos, New Mexico State Cycling Champion in 2005 and 2010.^[2]