Richard Hardin, a mechanical engineering research scientist at the University of Iowa Solidification Laboratory, has been honored by the Steel Founders’ Society of America (SFSA) for contributions to the field.

Over his nearly 30-year career at Iowa, Hardin has advanced custom-made software for casting process control, capabilities of commercially available casting simulation software, and novel approaches for casting mechanical performance prediction. He has also been an author on 97 publications.

Hardin won the Thomas E. Barlow Award of Honor, which is one of the society’s top three accolades. The society’s mission is to advance the steel casting industry through “manufacturing and design R&D, customer education, specifications development, and 120 years of operating and business knowledge.”

The Barlow Award recognizes those who have “gone above and beyond the call to support the steel casting industry.” The recognition occurred at the 2024 National Technical & Operating Conference in Chicago.

The Barlow Award came with a $1,500 prize, which Hardin chose to donate to the Department of Mechanical Engineering.

Hardin joined the University of Iowa as a post-doc and later a staff researcher for Christoph Beckermann, who directs the Solidification Laboratory. Beckermann is also the University of Iowa Foundation Distinguished Professor and an affiliate of the Iowa Technology Institute.