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Leora Dresselhaus-Marais
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Leora Dresselhaus-Marais

Assistant Professor of Materials Science and Engineering and of Photon Science
Leora studies how modern methods can enable new opportunities to update "old-school" materials processing and manufacturing for sustainability. This includes designing new microscopes and using them to get a deeper view into the extraction, forming, and functional properties of metallic materials. Leora's group works on thrusts in sustainable steelmaking (specifically ironmaking), metal 3D printing, and studies of the fundamental mechanisms underlying properties in materials.

Leora is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Materials Science & Engineering, with a courtesy appointment in Mechanical Engineering, and a term appointment in Photon Science at the SLAC National Accelerator Lab. Leora was also appointed as a Precourt Center Fellow and a Gabilan Fellow at Stanford University, and was selected for a Young Investigator Research Program (YIP) Award from the AFOSR in 2023. Before coming to Stanford, Leora was a Lawrence Fellow in the Physics Division of the Physics and Life Sciences Directorate at Lawrence Livermore National Labs, where she developed the tools to study time-resolved defect dynamics in bulk materials -- giving new insights into long-standing problems in materials science. Leora did her PhD in Physical Chemistry with Prof. Keith Nelson at MIT, where she demonstrated how shock waves initiate chemistry in RDX that couples to deformations in unique ways that enhance the sensitivity. Leora did her BA and MSc in Chemistry at the University of Pennsylvania.