Long-Qing Chen, the Hamer Professor of Materials Science and Engineering, received the 2015 Lee Hsun Lecture Award from the Chinese Academy of Sciences' (CAS) Institute of Metal Research (IMR). The award honors scientists from outside of CAS who have had significant impact and have made contributions to the field of materials science and engineering both at their home institution and abroad. Chen presented the lecture, titled "Phase-field Method and Its Applications to Modeling and Predicting Microstructures and Properties," at IMR on Dec. 16, 2015.

In his lecture, he used examples of his team's research on microstructure evolution during phase transformation to demonstrate the significant role of microstructure modeling in exploring the unknown and accelerating the development of advanced materials and devices. This research can be used to optimize the electromagnetic performance of functional materials.

Broadly, Chen's research focuses on computational microstructure evolution and multiscale modeling of metallic alloys, oxides and energy materials. His team has conducted numerous groundbreaking research studies on the establishment and application of phase field model. Both the model and algorithm he has proposed have been acknowledged and adopted worldwide.