Dr. Kent Peaslee, Curators’ Teaching Professor of metallurgical engineering at the University of Missouri-Rolla, has been named the F. Kenneth Iverson Chair of Steelmaking Technology at UMR.         

The chair was established in 2006 through a $2 million endowment from Nucor Corp., the largest steel company in the United States. The UMR chair was named in honor of Nucor’s founding chairman, F. Kenneth Iverson.         

Nucor’s endowment will be used to enhance metallurgical engineering education and research. Support for undergraduate, graduate and post-doctoral students working with Peaslee in steel manufacturing is included.         

“We conducted a national search for this chair and we found the best qualified person was already here at UMR,” says UMR Provost Warren K. (Kent) Wray.         

Peaslee, who is also the associate chair of undergraduate studies in the UMR materials science and engineering department, joined the UMR faculty as an assistant professor in 1994. He was promoted to associate professor in 2000, professor in 2005, and named a Curators’ Teaching Professor in 2006.         

Peaslee has received seven UMR Faculty Excellence Awards, 10 Outstanding Teaching Awards, the Class of 1942 Excellence in Teaching Award from the MSM-UMR Alumni Association and the Deans Teaching Scholar Award.         

Peaslee is a manufacturing and process metallurgist with research interests in waste and metals recycling, steelmaking, continuous casting, foundry optimization, metal-refractory interactions and environmental aspects of metal manufacturing.          

After earning a bachelor’s degree in metallurgical engineering from the Colorado School of Mines in 1978, Peaslee worked for 13 years in a variety of technical and management positions for steel companies, including Bayou Steel in La Place, La.; Border Steel Mills in El Paso, Texas; Raritan River Steel in Perth Amboy, N.J.; and CF&I Steel in Pueblo, Colo.          

Peaslee later attended graduate school at UMR, where he earned a Ph.D. in metallurgical engineering in 1994. He has published more than 85 papers in technical journals and conference proceedings.         

Peaslee is a member of the Association of Iron and Steel Technology, American Society of Engineering Educators, American Foundry Society, Sigma Xi, Tau Beta Pi and Kappa Mu Epsilon.