Wilfried Kurz is Professor emeritus of Materials Science and Engineering at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, EPFL). He received his diploma and doctor’s degree from University of Leoben, Austria. In 1964 he joined the staff of the Battelle Geneva Research Laboratories, which he left in 1971 as head of the physical metallurgy group. In the same year he was appointed at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, where, until his retirement in 2003, he directed the Laboratory of Physical Metallurgy as well as of the Laser Materials Processing Centre. After participating in 1972/73 in the foundation of the curriculum in Materials Science and Engineering at EPFL he was twice Head of Department . During 2004/05 he served as president of FEMS, the Federation of European Materials Societies. Author of four books, he published more than 200 papers and patents, principally on the science and technology of solidification. Professor Kurz is the recipient of awards from; Eisenhuette Oesterreich, TMS (USA), Société Française de Métallurgie et de Matériaux, Deutsche Gesellschaft fuer Materialkunde, the People’s Republic of China and the Federation of European Materials Societies.

Selected publications of recent years:

“Fundamentals of Solidification”, W. Kurz, DJ Fisher, Trans Tech Publ., Switzerland,, 4th revised edition 1998, 305 p

“Solidification microstructures: Recent development, future directions”, WJ Boettinger, SR Coriell, AL Greer, A Karma, W Kurz, M Rappaz, R Trivedi, Acta Mater., 48 (2000) 43/70

“Two-phase growth in peritectic Fe-Ni alloys”, M Vandyoussefi, HW Kerr, W Kurz, Acta Mater., 48 (2000) 2297-2306

“Single-crystal laser deposition of superalloys: Processing-microstructure maps”, M Gäumann, C Bezencon, P Canalis, W Kurz, Acta Mater., 49 (2001) 1051-1062

“Columnar to equiaxed transition in solidification processing”, W Kurz, C Bezencon, M Gäumann, Sci. Techn. Adv. Mater.,2 (2001) 185-191

“Solidification microstructure – processing maps: Theory and application”, W Kurz, Adv. Eng. Mater., 3 (2001) 443-452

“Dendritic growth”, W Kurz, R Trivedi, Proc. MC Flemings Symposium on Solidification and Materials Processing, eds R Abbaschian, H Brody, A Mortensen, TMS, Warrendale, PA, 2001, p. 87-99

“Massive Transformation and Absolute Stability“, M. Lima, W. Kurz, Metall. Mater. Trans. 33A (2002) 2337-2345

“Introduction to Materials Science”, JP Mercier, G Zambelli, W Kurz, Elsevier, Paris, 2002, 461 p.

“Peritectic Coupled Growth”, S Dobler, TS Lo, M Plapp, A Karma, W Kurz, Acta Mater., 52 (2004) 2795-2808

“Solidification cracking of superalloy single- and bi-crystals”, N Wang, S Mokadem, M Rappaz, W Kurz, Acta Mater., 52 (2004) 3173-3182

“Microstructure control during single crystal laser welding and deposition of Ni-base Superalloy”, S Mokadem, C Bezençon, J-M Drezet, A Jacot, J-D Wagnière, W Kurz, In “Solidification Processes and Microstructures”, eds. M Rappaz, C Beckermann, R Trivedi, TMS 2004, p.67-75