Behzad Vaziri Hassas received the 2023 Rong Yu Wan Ph.D. Dissertation Award in Metallurgical Engineering from the Society for Mining, Metallurgy, and Exploration (SME). Hassas, who earned his doctorate in energy and mineral engineering from Penn State earlier this year, was recognized for his dissertation, “Process development for selective separation of critical elements from secondary resources.”
“Considering Dr. Rong-Yu Wan’s amazing journey to success, I was tremendously honored to receive this award for my doctoral dissertation,” Hassas said.
Hassas, who is now a postdoctoral researcher at Columbia University, was advised by Mohammad Rezaee, associate professor in EME and holder of the Centennial Career Development Professorship in Mining Engineering in the Penn State College of Earth and Mineral Sciences.