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Rustum Roy was a major innovator of new materials synthesis techniques. Starting in 1948, he devised the solution sol-gel process for making pure nanoscale reactive powders for many important ceramic compositions. Roy's seminal work in developing the sol-gel process and in identifying the phases of barium titanate, the most widely used material for capacitors, gained him worldwide recognition.

Newnham’s basic discoveries in ferroelectric materials helped propel the growth of electronic devices, such as cell phones, and his contributions to the field of acoustic imaging earned the Benjamin Franklin Medal in Electrical Engineering in 2004, an honor that placed him among some of the greatest scientists of the modern era.

Evan Pugh Professor of Materials Science (1974), Philip Walker was a leading authority on the science of carbon, graphites, and coals. Walker came to Penn State for his doctorate in fuel science, which he received in 1952. Dr. Walker was one of the founders of the American Carbon Society and the editor of Chemistry Physics of Carbon, and associate editor of the international journal Carbon.

Della M. Roy, Emeritus Professor of Materials Science, was the first female materials scientist ever elected to the National Academy of Engineering (NAE,1987), the first woman from Penn State to be elected to the NAE, and the first woman elected to the World Academy of Ceramics.