2023 | JAMES ZHIJIAN SHEN (OPEN CERAMICS BEST PAPER) AWARD
DAVID KARL, Germany
David started his academic career with a Diploma in Fine Art awarded with distinction from Braunschweig University of Art in 2010, focusing on photography and sculpture. He went on to do a Master of Fine Art at the Slade School of Fine Art of University College London in 2012, specializing in conceptual art coupled with a material focus. David’s art practice was process‐based, and a change of fields came naturally to him as he went on with a Bachelor’s degree in Materials Science from Technische Universitaet Berlin, finishing in 2015. He went on to join the newly established Direct Track Doctoral Degree for academically outstanding candidates at the Technische Universitaet Berlin. His Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering was awarded summa cum laude in 2021 on the topic: “In situ resource utilization of Martian regolith simulants through wet‐processing for unfired clay structures and sintered ceramics”. Currently, he is a postdoctoral research group leader at TU Berlin, supervising three Ph.D. students with topics revolving around the development of novel Additive Manufacturing materials.
David has had the luck to be awarded several honors, starting with winning the European Competition in Art from the European Council on the German national level with artwork on the “Fortress Europe” in 2003. He subsequently studied fine art and participated in more than ten group and solo exhibitions as an art student. In 2010 he was an artist resident at “Suddenly last summer” Bauchery St. Martin, which was followed in 2012 by the Robert Ross scholarship from the Slade School of Fine Art at University College London. After switching fields, his first award in materials science was in 2016 with the Hans‐ Walter‐Hennicke‐Preis for young ceramists from the Deutsche Keramische Gesellschaft (DKG) for extraordinary conference presentations. From 2016‐2019 David received a doctoral studies scholarship from the Evonik Stiftung in Essen. In the Winter of 2022, he spent six months at the Colorado School of Mines Space Resources Program and the Department of Geology and Geological Engineering via a postdoctoral scholarship from the Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst (DAAD).
David has co‐authored more than ten peer‐reviewed papers and held around 20 scientific conference presentations, three as an invited keynote speaker. He has co‐edited a special issue on the “Advances in Additive Manufacturing of Ceramics” in Open Ceramics and has worked as a peer‐reviewer for JECS, Open Ceramics, Powder technology, New Space and as a science reviewer for the European Space Agency (ESA). With yCAM, he has led and co‐ organized six scientific conferences and been invited to serve on program committees of two unrelated conferences. David is a member of the Deutsche Keramische Gesellschaft (DKG) and the European Ceramic Society (ECerS), as well as the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE). Currently, David has the honor of serving at the ECerS Europe Makes Ceramics Committee.