Dwight Viehland, professor of materials science and engineering in the College of Engineering at Virginia Tech, was recently reappointed as the Jack E. Cowling Professor of Engineering by Virginia Tech President Tim Sands and Executive Vice President and Provost Cyril Clarke.

The Jack E. Cowling Endowed Professorship was established as part of the bequest by the late John E. “Jack” Cowling who graduated from Virginia Tech in 1939 with a chemical engineering degree. The professorship recognizes faculty excellence and recipients hold the professorship for a period of five years.

Viehland has held the Cowling Professorship since 2014.

A member of the Virginia Tech community since 2001, Viehland has been a pioneer in the development of magneto-electric composites and has conducted research on phase transitions in ceramics and physical phenomena like ferroelectricity, piezoelectricity, magnetostriction, and magnetoelectricity. These new composites have many potential applications for energy conversion, energy harvesting, data storage, and sensors.

Viehland has published 515 papers in peer-reviewed journals and accumulated more than 35,000 citations according to Google Scholar. He has also graduated 19 Ph.D. students.

In service to his profession, Viehland has been head of the electronics division of the American Ceramic Society, trustee to the Electronics Division of the American Ceramics Society, an editor for the Journal of the American Ceramics Society, and on the steering committee of the Ultrasonics, Ferroelectrics, and Frequency Control Society of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.

Viehland has received the Office of Naval Research Young Investigator Award, multiple best paper awards, and Virginia Tech’s Alumni Award for Excellence in Research in 2007.

He received his bachelor’s degree and master’s degree from the University of Missouri at Rolla and a Ph.D. from Penn State University.

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