Ahmet Erkan Gurdal Email & Phone Number

State College, PA, US

State College, Pennsylvania, United States

Manage overall textured, multilayer, and bulk piezoceramics operations at LRIP level. This includes program and staff management based on cost, schedule and performance. Quoting and bidding of new products and grants. Planning of capital investment and required IR&D effort to scale up from LRIP to FRP.

State College, Pennsylvania, United States

Managed the a fast paced ceramics team to scale up textured piezoceramics from bench scale to LRIP in multiple fronts. To accomplish this, seeked and utilized commercial sales and government grants and tracked them to their to budgets and schedules. In addition, highly involved in daily business activities from finding/hiring of new team members to.

State College, Pennsylvania Area

Set-up a vertically integrated laboratory for textured and multilayer piezoelectric ceramics cost effectively. Hired and trained staff to manage and execute programs on smart munitions, high temperature sensing/energy harvesting, and spinal fusion implants via NSF, NASA, and NIH SBIR Ph II grants. Established quality control protocols and work flow.

University Park, PA, USA

Developed hard-piezoceramic formulations for low temperature ceramic co-firing conditions to utilize base metal electrodes (silver and copper) and silver-palladium inks instead of platinum. Compositions' perfomances were verified in high power piezoelectric transformer application for transformers and smart munitions. Was able to establish a co-firing.

University Park, PA, USA

Synthesized bulk and dense lead-free piezoelectric ceramics, sodium-potassium-niobate (NKN), in particular. Selected appropriate dopants for NKN system to increase high power performance for transducers. Characterized lead-free ceramics under low and high power conditions to obtain overall piezoelectric material properties and demonstrated unique high.

Nagoya, Aichi, Japan

Synthesized textured NKN-based ceramics with reactive template grain growth(RTGG), Dr. Blade/tape casting.Optimized slurry preparation conditions and O2 atmosphere sintering conditions for textured and non-textured NKN-based ceramics. Learned about IP control, industrial laboratory safety and quality protocols.

University Park, PA, USA

Modeled and optimized cymbal transducers with ATILA® finite element analysis (FEA)and GID® designing software. Fabricated lead-zirconate-titanate (PZT) ceramics and cymbal micro pumps. Tested micropumps’ performance in air and underwater.

Thessaloniki, Greece

Learned about industry standards on casting of steel for rebar applications. Communicated with non-english team to carry out daily duties such as monitoring the hot rolling line. Led a welding project for extending the tool life of the inserts of hot rolling mill stands.

Istanbul, Turkey

Gained hands on experience with metal processing (forming, cutting, joining,finishing) in a mass production industrial environment. Received quality control measures and standards training.

Doctor Of Philosophy (Ph.D.), Materials Science And Engineering

Activities and Societies: University Park Allocation Committee, Turkish Student Association, Graduate Student Association

Master Of Science (M.Sc.), Materials Science And Engineering

Activities and Societies: IM Basketball, Please refer to "Research Assistant" under "Experience"

Bachelor'S Degree, Metallurgical And Materials Engineering

Activities and Societies: IM Basketball

Mathematics And Science

High School, Mathematics And Science

Activities and Societies: Quiz Bowl Team Member, Basketball Team