Janet Gbur, a senior research associate in Case Western Reserve University’s Department of Materials Science and Engineering, was recently selected to join ASTM International’s Board of Directors.

An ASTM member since 2012, Gbur attended her first meeting during her PhD studies at CWRU. “At that time, I was just beginning work on rotating bending fatigue of Nitinol wires for my dissertation,” she said. “At the meeting, I met with various committee members interested in fatigue and fracture of medical materials, and from there I had the opportunity to contribute to the test method for rotating bending fatigue and be a part of the interlaboratory study for ASTM.”

Now, as a board member, she hopes to contribute to discussions on the future of the organization. One of her main goals is to find ways to improve the connection between students and technical standards education. “CWRU has some excellent resources on technical standards curated by Daniela Solmon at the Kelvin Smith Library; however, not all universities are as fortunate and many students who could benefit from fundamental standards knowledge are left out,” she said.

During her tenure as an ASTM International Member, Gbur has served as chair of the long-range planning subcommittee and second vice chair of the metallography committee, as well as being a member of the committees on fatigue and fracture, mechanical testing, and medical and surgical materials and devices. 

Gbur, whose research focuses on fatigue and fracture behavior of materials used in biomedical applications and the development of emerging technologies to improve devices used in neural-interfacing systems, earned her PhD in Materials Science and Engineering from CWRU in 2018. She is also actively involved with American Society for Engineering Education, ASM International, Microscopy Society of America, Materials Research Society, the Microscopy Society of Northeastern Ohio, Society of Women Engineers, and The Minerals, Metals, and Materials Society.

In addition to her work at CWRU, Gbur is an adjunct professor at Youngstown State University and a research biomedical engineer and investigator in the Advanced Platform Technology Center at the Louis Stokes Cleveland VA Medical Center.