Thomas Hoefler
NIMS Postdoctoral Researcher, High-Reliability Heat-Resistant Materials Group, Materials Manufacturing Field, Research Center for Structural Materials
Hobbies
Cooking and baking/breadmaking, cycling, DSLR photography, computers
Special skills
Automatic measurements and data analysis
Q＆A
Q：How did you come to know about NIMS?
A：During my Postdoc at Kyushu University, I frequently used the Computational Phase Diagram Database (CPDDB) maintained at NIMS, and also attended several talks by NIMS researchers at conferences in Japan. I also encountered NIMS during my daily life in Japan. For example, NIMS featured on the TV program "Knight Scoop" by the Asahi Broadcasting Corporation, kindly answering a viewer asking "Please tell me what this mysterious object is".
Q：How did you get involved in materials research?
A：When I was a university student, I was fascinated when saw metallographic sections of cast steels in a light microscope for the first time. As I found the versatility and ubiquitousness of iron-based materials interesting, I mainly performed research concerning oxidation phenomena and microstructure analysis, which I find also has an artistic appeal. After that I began to work on superalloys, where I was also able to apply my programming experience - which I did as a hobby - to numerical simulations for prediciton of material properties.
Q：What is the attraction of NIMS?
A：I visited NIMS just before starting as a Postdoc researcher, and was impressed by the amount and quality of research equipment present (especially by the electron microscopes). Before joining, I was unsure how the interpersonal relationships and life in Tsukuba would be (which is difficult to grasp from just one short visit), but I soon found an environment where I could always ask for advice when in need and Tsukuba offers many recreational opportunities for cycling, walking and public parks.
Q：What is your research topic, and what attracts you to it?
A：The aim of my research here is to develop an automatic, high-throughput analysis method to acquire large amounts of data in a short time, hoping to contribute to the optimization of superalloys, which are commonly found in turbine blades and discs. The topic has a good balance between experimental and computational work, and since it is a highly interdisciplinary and multifaceted topic, there are always opportunities for a change of pace or approach. I often come up with a solution to a problem when working on a different problem. Further, the method is not only applicable to superalloys, but to all kinds of materials, for example to gather phase diagrams or heat treatment data.