UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Long-Qing Chen, Hamer Professor of Materials Science and Engineering, has been named an Evan Pugh University Professor, the highest honor that Penn State bestows on a faculty member. This prestigious distinction, effective July 1, has been conferred by Penn State to only 84 faculty members since the designation’s establishment in 1960.
Chen is one of five University faculty members to be named Evan Pugh Professors in 2026. Named for Penn State’s founding president, the distinction honors preeminent professors and recognizes the importance of research in supporting the quality and reputation of the University. Professors are selected without regard to college affiliation, program or location. Professorships are granted only to candidates who are acknowledged national and international leaders in their fields of research or creative activity.
“Long-Qing represents the best of what it means to be a Penn State faculty member: he’s an innovative researcher, outstanding instructor, and strong contributor to the University community,” said Lee Kump, John Leone Dean in the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences. “We are also proud of the fact that he is the 11th professor from the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences to be honored with this recognition.”
Chen, who also is a professor of engineering science and mechanics, professor of mathematics and professor of physics, joined the Penn State faculty in 1992. He is an international leader in the field of computational mesoscale materials science. He is credited with pioneering the development of phase-field models to understand and predict grain growth in polycrystalline materials, domain evolution and dynamics in ferroelectric materials, electrochemical processes in energy materials, and strain-dominated microstructure evolution in structural metallic alloys, functional oxide thin films, and quantum materials. He is a Clarivate Highly-Cited Researcher in both materials science and physics. His publications have received more than 110,000 citations, with an h‑index of 155, according to Google Scholar. He is also the author of the textbook “Thermodynamic Equilibrium and Stability of Materials.”
“I am deeply humbled and honored to be named an Evan Pugh University Professor,” Chen said. “This recognition reflects the extraordinary students and postdoctoral scholars I have been fortunate to work with, as well as the many collaborators within and beyond Penn State who have generously shared ideas and credit. I am grateful to the outstanding the department and college staff and administrators for their constant support, and most of all to my family for their patience and understanding," he said on what it means to be named an Evan Pugh University Professor.
For his contributions, Chen received the Materials Research Society (MRS) Materials Theory Award, the Humboldt Research Award, the Minerals, Metals & Materials Society (TMS) John Bardeen, Hume-Rothery, and Cyril Stanley Smith Awards, the American Ceramic Society (ACeS) Ross Coffin Purdy Award, the Ferroelectrics Recognition Award and Distinguished Lecturer Award from the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. He was also awarded the University Faculty Scholar Medal and received the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences’ Paul F. Robertson Award for EMS Research Breakthrough of the Year.
Chen is an elected member of the U.S. National Academy of Engineering and a foreign member of the Academia Europaea. He is a fellow and life member of TMS and was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship. He is also a fellow of the MRS, ACerS, the American Physical Society, American Association for the Advancement of Science and ASM International.
Chen earned his bachelor's degree from Zhejiang University, China; his master's degree from the State University of New York at Stony Brook; and his doctoral degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, all in materials science and engineering.