Dr. Kyle Brinkman was honored at the 20th Annual College of Engineering and Science banquet on April 30th with the Outstanding Young Alumni Award. The award was presented to him by Dean Anand Gramopadhye and department chair, Dr. Doug Hirt. At a relatively young age, Prof. Kyle Brinkman has established an impressive track record of multidisciplinary, collaborative research resulting in significant contributions to national and international research initiatives, particularly those between academia and national laboratories. Prof. Brinkman received his B.S. in Chemical Engineering at Clemson in 1998 and his M.S. in Materials Science and Engineering in 2000. In 2004, he received his Ph.D. from the Swiss Federal Institute of Lausanne, Switzerland.
Prof. Brinkman is currently an Associate Professor at Clemson in the Materials Science and Engineering Department. In the ten months he has been active at Clemson as a professor, he has already secured more than $1 million dollars in sponsored research. Prior to Clemson, he was a Program Manager for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy at the Savannah River National Laboratory, where he worked from 2008 through 2014. He has been the P.I. or co-P.I. on more than $5 million dollars in sponsored research and has authored or co-authored over 70 peer-reviewed technical publications and government reports. He has made significant advances in various focus areas including hydrogen storage and purification, electronic ceramic materials for solid oxide fuel cell systems, and crystalline ceramics for applications in nuclear energy. His successful collaborations have produced quality results, and he has been recognized by various professional societies and the Department of Energy for his research achievements. Prof. Brinkman’s most recent research project, which made the front page of the Greenville News, is exploring new materials that could safely store nuclear waste. His research team is focusing on a crystalline ceramic that will be based on naturally occurring minerals that endure for millions of years. This project won an $800,000 research grant from the U.S. Department of Energy.
The Department of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering nominated alumnus Dr. Kyle Brinkman for the Outstanding Young Alumni Award because he has proven to be an exceptional scholar, a world-class scientist, and an outstanding leader.
