Carol Handwerker leads the CMI focus area Driving Reuse and Recycling. She is the Reinhardt Schuhmann Jr. Professor of Materials Engineering at Purdue University. Her research interests are to develop and apply thermodynamic and kinetic theory and experiments of phase transformations and interface motion to solve important industrial and scientific problems. Understand how specific microstructures can be designed in poycrystalline materials and thin films by control of interface properties. Develop models for how single crystal nanowires nucleate and grow using the VLS (vapor-liquid-solid) method Improving the manufacturing and reliability of the current generation of Pb-free solder interconnects on printed circuit boards. Developing new nanoparticle-based interconnect structures for next generation circuit assembly.
She has worked at Purdue since 2005, and previously worked for several government organizations. She earned a several degrees culminating in a doctorate from the department of materials science and engineering at MIT.