TMS: A Link to Our Past; A Bridge to Our Future


     I, like many, view TMS as my home 
society and going to the TMS annual 
meeting as a kind of professional family 
reunion, where we share a materials bond, 
interactions occur across generations, and 
it is hard to move without bumping into old 
friends and making new ones. 
     Alex Haley once said, “Family is link 
to our past, bridge to our future,” and so it 
is with TMS. It seems like only yesterday 

my tie, and waiting in the hall to meet 
the person who I hoped would become 
my doctoral advisor. The year was 1984, 
TMS was celebrating the 50th anniversary 
of dislocations, and Bill Nix became not 
only my advisor but a life-long friend 
and mentor. Fast forward a few decades 
and I am delighted to be able to attend 
TMS meetings with my own students and 

make friends, join committees, organize 
symposia, become TMS Young Leaders, 
and bring their own students into the TMS 
family.  
     Yearly gatherings at the TMS annual 
meeting and Materials Science & 
Technology (MS&T) are the heart and soul 
of our society, but TMS staff and volunteer 

promoting the future of our profession 
year-round. With that in mind, when I am 
asked what I want to accomplish during my 
year as TMS president, I am reminded that 
whatever we achieve will be the result of 
collaborative teamwork.
     Paradoxically, my vision for TMS 
involves both staying the course and 
pursuing opportunities for change. There 
is much that TMS does right and that its 
members desire in a professional society. 
Dynamic meetings, a tangible sense 

TMS: A Link to Our Past;  
A Bridge to Our Future

Kevin J. Hemker, 2018 TMS President

of community, a tradition of volunteer 
engagement and ownership, and a 
diverse and informed perspective on the 
interplay of science and technology are all 
tremendously valuable TMS hallmarks. The 
desire to protect them is widespread and 
broadly shared, and that is how it should be. 
Nevertheless, the world is changing around 
us and TMS must vigorously seek out 

improve the overall experience that it offers 
its members.  
     Alan H. Epstein, vice president, 
Technology and Environment, Pratt & 
Whitney, once told me that when he was 
an academic at the Massachusetts Institute 
of Technology, he worked on problems. 
When he moved to industry, he learned that 
problems are called opportunities. TMS 

opportunities where others see problems. 
We cannot afford to ignore the changes 
that are occurring around us. Changes in 
our key industries, the advancement of 
science and technology, the manufacturing 
of materials, the creation of digital datasets, 
the education of our students, and the ways 
that we communicate and interact with 
each other are all are fast becoming the new 
reality. 
     As a sailor, I know that boats sail truest 
with a steady hand on the tiller, constant 
attention to detail, and a series of small 
adjustments. So it is with organizations, 
where well thought-out strategic plans are 
preferable to hasty tactical adjustments. The 
TMS Strategic Plan emphasizes promoting 
diversity within our society, accelerating 
industrial engagement, thinking globally, 
and addressing pressing societal needs 
related to energy, the environment and 
innovation. It can be read on the TMS 
website, but I would like in this article to 

Kevin J. Hemker 

“The world is 

changing around 

us and TMS must 

vigorously seek 

out opportunities 

enhance and 

improve the 

overall experience 

that it offers its 

members.”

JOM, Vol. 70, No. 4, 2018

https://doi.org/10.1007/s11837-018-2805-4
Ó 2018 The Minerals, Metals & Materials Society

439



440 Hemker

JO
themagazine

focus on the need for increased inclusivity, 
because I believe we must fully engage and 
empower all of our members to capitalize 
on the opportunities that lie before us. 
     The TMS Board of Directors has been 
actively reviewing our selection processes 

need widespread engagement at all levels. 
Did you realize that TMS symposia and 
workshops are organized from the bottom 
up in our technical committees? TMS has 

three dozen such committees, if you are 
not a member of one, please join one. If 
you have never organized a symposium, 
ask a senior colleague to teach you how. 
Veteran TMS members, please invite a 
junior member to join a committee or to help 
you co-organize a symposium. The TMS 

divisions that offer expanded opportunities 
for engagement and provide each member 
with a home base within the greater 
Society. The TMS Board of Directors, TMS 
staff, and board-level committees play an 
important role in assuring that the overall 
impact of the Society is greater than the 
sum of its parts. TMS is best served when 

cultural, and demographic diversity of our 
entire membership.
     Since this is supposed to be an 
introduction, let me close with a few words 
about myself. I view life as a series of 
adventures. I grew up in northwest Ohio, 

University of Cincinnati, ventured west to 
Stanford for graduate school, and then east 
to Switzerland for a three-year postdoc. For 
the past 25 years, I have had the privilege of 
being a professor of mechanical engineering, 
materials science and engineering, and 
earth and planetary sciences at Johns 
Hopkins University. My wife, Dr. Maria 
Oliva-Hemker, was exiled from Cuba when 
she was young and is now the Stermer 

Bowel Disease and Director of Pediatric 
Gastroenterology, Hepatology, and Nutrition 
at the Johns Hopkins University School of 
Medicine. We have two sons; James who 
is a freshman at Stanford University and 
Michael, an 8th grader at the Gilman School 
in Baltimore. 
     I am also proud of my academic family 
tree, and in particular, the branch that 
is growing at Johns Hopkins. Working 
with so many talented young scientists 
and witnessing the digital revolution that 
we are immersed in, I am convinced that 
there has never been a better time to be a 
materials professional. Thomas Freedman 
once described the global energy crisis as, 
“The opportunity of a lifetime disguised as a 
series of unsolvable problems”.  
What more could an engineering 
society that sees problems as 
opportunities ask for?

2018 TMS Board of Directors
Kevin J. Hemker was officially installed as the 2018 TMS President at 
the TMS 2018 Annual Meeting & Exhibition in March. The following 
individuals join him on the TMS Board of Directors to lead the Society in 
the coming year:

TMS President
Kevin Hemker
Professor and Chair,  
Johns Hopkins University

TMS Past President
David DeYoung
Director of R&D, Breakthrough 
Technology, Alcoa

TMS Vice President
James Foley
Scientist, Los Alamos  
National Laboratory

TMS Financial Planning 
Officer
Adrian Deneys
Business Development 
Manager, Praxair, Inc.

TMS Director, Professional 
Development
Chester Van Tyne
Professor Emeritus, Colorado 
School of Mines

TMS Director/Chair, Content 
Development & Dissemination
Michele Manuel
Professor, University of Florida

TMS Director/Chair, Member  
& Student Development
Amy Clarke
Associate Professor, Colorado 
School of Mines

TMS Director/Chair, 
Programming
Brad Boyce
Senior Member for the Technical 
Staff, Sandia  
National Laboratories

TMS Director/Chair, Public  
& Governmental Affairs
John Howarter
Assistant Professor, Purdue 
University

TMS Director/Chair, Extraction 
& Processing Division
Cynthia Belt
Energy Management 
Consultant, Metals Energy 
Management LLC

TMS Director/Chair,  
Functional Materials  
Division
Raymundo Arroyave
Professor, Texas A&M University

TMS Director/Chair,  
Light Metals Division
Alan Luo
Professor & Director,  
Ohio State University

TMS Director/Chair, Materials 
Processing & Manufacturing 
Division
Corbett Battaile
Principal Member, Technical 
Staff, Sandia National 
Laboratories

TMS Director/Chair,  
Structural Materials Division
Ellen Cerreta
Deputy Division Leader, Los 
Alamos National Laboratory

TMS Secretary/Executive 
Director
James Robinson


	TMS: A Link to Our Past;
A Bridge to Our Future
	2018 TMS Board of Directors