Awards and Achievements

During the 2025 CALPHAD meeting in Busan, Korea, it was announced that Lorenzo Fenocchio, Database Developer at Thermo-Calc Software had won the APDIC Best Paper Award.

He received the award for the paper: “Critical Assessment of Phase Equilibria in the Al-Co-Ta and Al-Ni-Ta Systems” (Authors: L. Fenocchio, S. Gambaro, and G. Cacciamani). The paper critically reviews the Al-Co-Ta and Al-Ni-Ta ternary systems, compiling and evaluating existing data to provide consistent phase diagrams and support future ICME research. It was published in a special issue honoring Prof. Mats Hillert

The APDIC Awards promotes activities of phase diagram related work by annually bestowing the Best Paper Award to the authors of the publication judged to be the best in the field of phase equilibria and thermodynamics of the previous year.

Qing Chen Receives Editor’s Choice Award for Co-Authored Manuscript

Qing Chen, alongside co-authors Zhangting He (Swerim) and Malin Selleby (Kungliga Tekniska högskolan), was in 2025 recognized with the Editor’s Choice Award for 2024 by the Journal of Phase Equilibria and Diffusion for their manuscript, “Third Generation Calphad for Key Elements.”

This invited article is part of a special tribute issue of the journal, honoring the legacy of Mats Hillert on the 100th anniversary of his birth. The paper provides an overview of the models used for third-generation Calphad descriptions, covering stable, metastable, and liquid phases. It details the evolution of thermodynamic descriptions for key elements, includes new assessments where needed, and offers practical guidelines to support future optimization and modeling efforts.

Bharat Mehta Wins Jernkortoret’s Powder Metallurgy Award for Excellent PhD Thesis

During Jernkontoret’s Powder Meet conference in November 2024, Bharat Mehta, Application Specialist at Thermo-Calc Software AB, was honored with a Powder Metallurgy Award, recognizing exceptional research skills at an international level in the field of powder metallurgy.

The award, presented biennially during Jernkontoret’s Powder Meet conference in Stockholm, was given to Bharat for his PhD thesis titled “Development of High-Performance Aluminium Alloys Tailored for Powder Bed Fusion-Laser Beam.” His research has resulted in over 10 scientific publications, a patent application, and the development of two commercial materials in collaboration with Höganäs AB.

The award committee cited the following motivation: “For his contribution to the development of a new sustainable aluminium alloy for additive manufacturing, where he has combined extensive international scientific publication, collaboration with Swedish industry, and strongly contributed to the development of applications for the new aluminium alloy.”

Mehdi Noori Recieves the Best Paper Award in the CALPHAD Annual Awards and the APDIC Best Paper Award

During the CALPHAD 2024 conference in Mannheim, Germany, Mehdi Noori, CALPHAD Database Developer at Thermo-Calc Software won two awards for two different papers.

He won the Best Paper Award for papers published in the CALPHAD Journal for the paper “Thermodynamic database for multi-principal element alloys within the system Al–Co–Cr–Fe–Mn–Ni–C” (Authors: Mehdi Noori, Bengt Hallstedt, Fabian Kies, Felix Oppermann, and Christian Haase).

The paper for the Best Paper Award is voted by the CALPHAD Advisory and Editorial Board members.

He also received the APDIC Best Paper Award for the paper “Hybrid Calphad DFT modelling of the Mg–Al–Ca system” (Authors: Mehdi Noori and Bengt Hallstedt).

Qing Chen and Paul Mason Inducted into the ASM Fellows Class of 2022

Dr. Qing Chen, Chief Scientific Officer and Director of Research & Innovation at Thermo-Calc Software and Paul Mason, President of Thermo-Calc Software Inc. were inducted into the ASM Fellows Class of 2022.

The honor is bestowed upon technical and professional leaders for their distinguished contributions to materials science and engineering.

The Fellow of the Society was established in 1969 by ASM not only as a way to honor the inductees, but also to establish a group of advisors to ASM’s board of trustees. Inductees offer technical and professional expertise to the board, which, according to ASM’s website, “enhances the society’s standing as a leading organization for materials and provides a unique resource to serve the worldwide community of materials scientists and engineers in the years ahead.”

Weiwei Zhang Receives JPED Editor’s Choice Award

Weiwei Zhang, PhD., Materials Scientist at Thermo-Calc Software Inc., was awarded for her paper “Thermodynamic Modeling of the La-Co-O System” (Authors: Weiwei Zhang, Erwin Povoden-Karadeniz, Huixia Xu & Ming Chen). It was recognized as one of six papers in the annual JPED Editors’ Choice Awards. Dr. Zhang’s paper is based on a chapter from her PhD thesis and was edited for publication in the “Journal of Phase Equilibria and Diffusion”.

The awarded paper is about the development of a database for La-Co-O system, which can be used for calculating phase equilibria and thermodynamic properties at temperatures of 298-3000 K and oxygen partial pressure of 10−20 − 1 bar. Thereby, material composition optimization for various applications are enabled. The intention of her PhD work was to investigate the SOFC materials. This can also be used in areas such as hydrogenation oxidation catalyst, oxygen separation membranes and Magneto Hydrodynamic (MHD) electrodes.