Following a stellar 40+ year career in the ferrous PM industry, British-born Dr W. Brian James was appointed Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Powder Metallurgy, published by MPIF/APMI, Princeton, NJ, at the beginning of 2015. MPR Consulting Editor Joseph Capus caught up with him at the EURO PM2015 Congress in Reims, France after James had received the 2015 EPMA Distinguished Service Award.
Like many others before him, Brian James first became interested in metallurgy after reading the book, “Metals in the Service of Man” by British authors, Street and Alexander. The fact that so much could be determined by examining the microstructure of a material completely captivated him. He went on to study metallurgy at the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST), in the UK and a series of lectures on powder metallurgy by Dr Tom Davies in his final year was the initial introduction to PM. For his PhD at UMIST he worked on the development of dispersion strengthened zirconium alloys using powder metallurgy processing and got to learn about powder mixing, compaction, vacuum hot pressing, and extrusion of metal powders.
This article appeared in the Jan/Feb issue of Metal Powder Report.
