Office Address: 11 Steidle Building, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16803
Office Phone: (814) 865-1059
Cell Phone: (412) 334-6878
Email Address: bdr137@psu.edu
About Me:
I was born on April 16th, 1983 in Monroeville, PA. I have resided in the great state of Pennsylvania my entire life. I come from a large Irish family in the greater Pittsburgh area. My parents are Drummond and Virginia Berrett. I have three sisters. There names are Angela, Sharon, and Danielle. Sadly, I have no brothers, but I love my sisters dearly. For the most part, I grew up in McKeesport, PA, which is about 10 minutes from the famous Kennywood Park. In tenth grade, I moved to North Huntingdon Township and received my High School diploma from Norwin High School in 2001. Norwin High School is where my interests in the field of metallurgy were sparked. I worked on two materials science and engineering projects throughout my time at Norwin. The first was a science fair project on the engineering of a lead-tin binary phase diagram with the aid of a Carnegie Mellon University graduate student named Bill Slye. My second project was on the tensile strength of lead-tin alloys. Since then, I have continued my education in materials science and engineering at Penn State University. I graduated in 2005 with my Bachelors of Science in Materials Science and Engineering with a focus in metals. Currently, I am enrolled as a full-time graduate research assistant for Dr. Tarasankar Debroy. I am fulfilling my requirements for a Masters in Materials Science and Engineering, but I plan to take the candidacy exam this fall in order to become a doctorate candidate. I should graduate from Penn State University by 2009 with my Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering. From there, who knows where I will end up.
When I am not busy with school work or research, I enjoy playing and listening to music. I have been playing guitar for some time and have written some original music over the years. I also enjoy video games on occasion. I prefer playing old gaming systems such as Nintendo or Atari; however, I do find the current video gaming systems entertaining. I have a plethora of friends I have made over the years; many due to having numerous roommates throughout my time at Penn State. I currently room with two other engineering students who plan to graduate in the near future. In addition to my many other interests, I enjoy traveling. This year I traveled to Europe for the first time. I had a wonderful time. I traveled to the Netherlands, France, and Ireland. France was great. I took several years of French in high school and I was really surprised by how much I was able to recall while I was there. I have also visited Cozumel, Mexico, Belize, and the Grand Cayman Islands. I hope to go back to the Caribbean sometime in the near future. My fourth interest outside of school work and research is sports. I have been attending Penn State for six years now, and I am a huge Nittany Lion's football fan. I enjoy watching and attending the football games on a regular basis. Being from the Pittsburgh area of Pennsylvania, I am a big Pittsburgh Steelers and Pittsburgh Penguins fan. I also enjoy playing sports when possible. I enjoy playing football, hockey, baseball, tennis, table tennis, badminton, golf, billiards, and volleyball. In addition, I love to go swimming.
This summer, I plan to complete research at Los Alamos National Laboratory. It will be my first time gaining real world research experience outside of academia. I have had industrial internships in the past, but nothing like this. I am looking forward to it very much. I plan to live in Los Alamos, New Mexico for approximately two months. It's also going to be my first time living by myself. I think it's going to offer me additional real world experience that I haven't been able to gain through college life. I am really looking forward to the change in climate and the interesting places I will be able to visit there on the weekends in addition to the numerous experiences I will gain in the lab.
Research Interests:
Throughout my experiences in the field of Materials Science and Engineering, I have come to enjoy several areas of the field. However, I have not had the time to research all of them significantly. Currently, I am completing numerical modeling research on hybrid welding under the advising of Dr. Tarasankar Debroy. I have been researching the heat transfer and fluid flow behavior in combating common weld defects such as porosity, residual stresses, cracking, and brittle phase formation due to thermal effects. I have also been working on the effect of welding parameters and heat source interaction in determining weld bead geometry. The interaction which occurs between an electrical arc and laser heat source is a very interesting area of research.
Other research interests I have are materials processing (in general) and metal hydrides for hydrogen storage. I completed my undergraduate thesis on the crystal chemistry of metal hydrides and its effect on the diffusion of hydrogen throughout the crystalline structure. I find metal hydrides a very interesting subject, especially in aiding the development of the hydrogen economy. It is an important area of research to be familiar with, especially during these innovative times of alternative energy sources.
Publications:
I do not currently have any published papers, but I will hopefully in the near future.
Awards:
Materials Science and Engineering Links:
Debroy Group Materials Processing/Welding
Penn State University Materials Science and Engineering Department website
SGTE Binary Phase Diagram Collection