After Nearly Four Decades of Service, Lourdes Salamanca-Riba Retires

Professor and Associate Chair of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Lourdes Salamanca-Riba, will retire from the University of Maryland (UMD) after 37 years of service.

“I have truly enjoyed working with students and faculty on different research projects over the years. I have also enjoyed teaching students about materials science and learning about their interests in the field. I really appreciate the fast and efficient response of the staff in the department. I will miss these interactions, but I am looking forward to a new chapter in my life,” she said.

A renowned materials scientist, Salamanca-Riba specializes in nanocomposites of ferroelectric and magnetic oxides for sensors, solid oxide fuel cells for energy production, and covetics for improving the electrical, optical and mechanical properties of metals. Her work has been cited approximately 11,700 times and appeared in prestigious publications, such as Science Journal, the Journal of Applied Physics, Advanced Engineering Materials, Carbon, Applied Physics Letters, and the National Institutes of Standards and Technology’s Center for Nanoscale Science and Technology newsletter.

“Professor Salamanca-Riba played a key role in numerous major research efforts in MSE over the years. In particular, her work on epitaxial oxide thin films is well-known in the community for having revealed the details of defect structures which govern the overall functionalities of the materials,” says Ichiro Takeuchi, interim chair of MSE.

In 2007, Dr. Salamanca-Riba was named a UMD Research Leader for her contributions to the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Materials Research Science and Engineering Center (MRSEC), specializing in the characterization of ferroelectric and ferromagnetic materials as well as nanocomposites. She also directed a $500,000 initiative sponsored by the NSF to upgrade two microscopes in the Nanoscale Imaging Spectroscopy and Properties (NISP) Laboratory housed in the Jeong H. Kim Engineering Building.

She was also instrumental in the recent acquisition of an aberration corrected transmission electron microscope with additional capabilities to characterize materials under external control parameters such as temperature, laser beam, voltage, current, and for analyzing samples in a liquid or gas environment— a new facility for student training and research purposes.

Salamanca-Riba was later appointed to the UMD Advance Program for Inclusive Excellence, which previously was supported by the NSF to improve the advancement and retention of tenure-track women faculty in STEM from 2017-2018. She has been a member of the Defense Materials Manufacturing and its Infrastructure (DMMI) organizing committee of the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine since 2019. In 2018, she received a $2 million grant from the Department of Energy’s Advanced Manufacturing Office, which supported her work on improving electrical-mechanical-thermal properties in materials for electrical wiring, reducing materials usage and energy waste in transmission-line networks and in microchips.

Before her service to UMD, Salamanca-Riba was a Senior Research Scientist at the General Motors Research and Development team until 1987.

She holds a bachelor’s degree in physics from the Universidad Autonoma Metropolitana in Mexico City (1978), and a doctorate degree in the same field from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1985).

Published December 10, 2024