Melting, Smelting, Casting and Refining is an awesome and unique course where we, through hands on methods, learn about the fundamentals of bulk metallurgy. Starting from ‘raw ore’ we go through all the steps to make a finished cast piece. We witness many of the mechanisms and phenomena that we learn about in various classes. In this lab we routinely work with molten metal at temperatures over 1000°C in home-made furnaces.
Howie Joress was a member of Professor Tim Weihs‘ research group researching reactive materials. He also served as a TA for the undergraduate materials laboratory class and was a leader in the Johns Hopkins Outdoor Club. He is currently pursuing a PhD in Materials Science and Engineering at Cornell University.