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Ronald Gronsky, Department of Material Science & Engineering
 
 Ronald Gronsky
 Department of Material Science & Engineering Professor Ronald Gronsky. Peg Skorpinski photo.

"He brings his subject to life. His lectures are always exciting, and his door is always open." That's how Caroline Lau, a fourth-year material science undergraduate, describes Ronald Gronsky, professor of material science and engineering.

Within a few moments of meeting Gronsky, it's easy to glimpse his superior teaching style by observing how he gestures, enunciates new terms distinctly, and reaches for props to help explain his topic.

"The most challenging aspect is finding the examples that help students assimilate the complex ideas in material science," said Gronsky, who constantly is thinking of new ways to relate how the microscopic structure of materials affects their use in everything from bridges to computer circuits.

To illustrate a concept, such as how metals react to external stresses, Gronsky invites a relatively petite student to bend a copper rod, which he or she can do with ease. Next, he asks one of the strongest students to make the rod straight again, which, despite his or her might, is very difficult to do.

"There are few people who can deliver a lecture, seminar or scientific paper with the enthusiastic intensity that Professor Gronsky exhibits," said Douglas Fuerstenau, a professor in Graduate School from the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, who himself won the Distinguished Teaching Award in 1974.

As an undergraduate at the University of Pittsburgh, Gronsky tutored local high school students. While earning his Ph.D. at Berkeley in the 1970s, Gronsky asked for teaching assistantships, unlike many of his fellow graduate students who believed teaching interfered with their research.

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