Lippold, John

Biography

I was born and raised in the dairy farming country of western New York State between Buffalo and Rochester.  My father was a World War II veteran and worked for the New York Telephone Company for 42 years.  My mother was born in the Black Forest (Schwarzwald) region of Germany and moved to the U.S. in 1924 when she was 3 years old.  She graduated from high school at 17 as the salutorian and went on to become a grade school teacher.  My German grandfather was a dairy farmer and operated a sawmill. During World War I, he was in the Prussian Army and was in charge of an artillery battalion that moved cannons around the battlefield using horses. My American grandfather was a carpenter and barn builder in Upstate New York. He enlisted in the American Expeditionary Force in 1917. My grandfathers actually fought against each other in northern France in 1918, during the later stages of WWI. My great uncle, Arthur Calkins, was also a WWI veteran and was a member of the 78th Division which fought in the final battle of the war in the Meuse-Argonne region in northeastern France.

After graduating as valedictorian from Notre Dame High School in Batavia NY, I decided to pursue an engineering degree at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, NY.  It wasn't until my junior year that I decided to specialize in Materials Engineering, and I graduated with a B.S. degree in 1973.  During my senior year, I was fortunate to make the acquaintance of Professor Warren Savage who at that time was one of the best known academics working in the area of welding metallurgy.  He invited me to join his research group and I ended up staying at Rensselaer to earn both M.S. and PhD degrees in Materials Engineering.  While I was working on my PhD, I had the pleasure of sharing an office with Bud Baeslack who eventually became the Dean of the College of Engineering at OSU and, until recently, was the Provost/Executive VP at Case Western University in Cleveland.

After graduation, my first job was with Sandia National Laboratories in Livermore, CA where I was a member of the technical staff, specializing in stainless steel and high alloy weldability. In 1985, I left Sandia to take a position at the newly-formed Edison Welding Institute in Columbus, Ohio.  Part of my attraction to EWI was the relationship with OSU and the opportunity to teach and advise students as an adjunct professor in the Welding Engineering department.  In 1995, I left EWI to join the fulltime faculty of the Welding Engineering Program.  In addition to my academic duties, I also directed the National Excellence in Materials Joining Education and Training (NEMJET) program at OSU.  Recently, I led an effort to develop a distance education Welding Engineering degree (MSWE) program at OSU, the only one of its kind in the world.  From October 2004 to March 2006, I served as Interim Chair of the IWSE Department.  While on the fulltime faculty, I taught a number of courses that focused on the Welding Metallurgy aspects of materials joining. In September 2012, I was recognized as a College of Engineering Distinguished Faculty. In December 2015, I retired from the fulltime faculty and am now an Emeritus Professor at OSU.

Over the past 30 years, I have been actively involved in research programs designed to gain a better understanding of the welding metallurgy and weldability of engineering materials.  My research has focused on the evaluation of weldability test techniques and the development of technology that helps solve engineering problems associated with welding.  Based on this research, I have published over 300 technical papers and reports and made over 300 technical presentations.  I have been fortunate to have attracted many talented undergraduate and graduate students into my research group at OSU.  Since joining OSU in 1995, I have advised over 60 graduate students, many of whom have moved on to prominent positions in both industry and academia.

Thanks to these students and fruitful technical collaborations with my coworkers, I have won a number of awards from professional organizations.  These include the following: the Charles H. Jennings Memorial Award (1978, 1980, 2004, 2017, 2019), the William Spraragen Memorial Award (1980, 1993, 2011, 2015, 2018), the Warren F. Savage Memorial Award (1994, 1999, 2009, 2010, 2013, 2014, 2016), the McKay-Helm Award (1995, 1997, 2010), the A.F. Davis Silver Medal (2000), the W.H. Hobart Award (2010), the Lincoln Gold Medal (1983), the Adams Memorial Membership Award (1997), the Plummer Memorial Educational Lecture Award (2002), and the William Irrgang Award (2002) all from the American Welding Society (AWS). I was also the recipient of Buehler Technical Paper Merit Award (1985, 1989) from the International Metallographic Society.  In 1994, I was elected a Fellow of ASM International and in 1996 became a Fellow of AWS.  In 1997, I was honored to be selected to give the Comfort A. Adams Memorial Lecture at the AWS Annual Convention in Los Angeles. In 2008, I was selected to give the Jaeger Lecture at the IIW International Congress in Sao Paulo, Brazil. In July 2009, I received the Yoshiaki Arata Award from the International Institute of Welding (IIW). This is the most prestigious scientific award presented by IIW. I remain active in a number of technical societies and serve on various technical committees. In 2008, I was appointed Editor-in Chief of Welding in the World, a position that I still hold today.

December 2020

Expertise

Fundamental concepts of welding metallurgy                    Weldability testing

Weld defect formation and control                                      Physical/welding metallurgy of Al-alloys

Weld solidification behavior                                                 Weldability of advanced materials

Phase transformations                                                         Corrosion of welded structures

Physical/welding metallurgy of structural steels                 Failure analysis

Physical/welding metallurgy of stainless steels                  Repair weldability

Physical/welding metallurgy of nickel-base alloys              Materials joining education and training

Friction stir welding and processing                                    Distance education for welding engineering