Professor Bernie Wuensch arrived at MIT as a freshman, and has made this place his home. He holds the S.B. and S.M. in Physics and the Ph.D. in Crystallography from what was then the Department of Geology (now Earth and Planetary Sciences); in 1964, he joined the Department of Metallurgy as Assistant Professor of Ceramics, after spending a year at the University of Bern in Switzerland.
An expert in x-ray crystallography and transport phenomena in complex perovskite oxides, Prof. Wuensch has integrated his research into the classroom, encouraging students to look for symmetry and structure all around them, whether in tile floors, in other class assignments, or in nature.
During his years on the DMSE faculty, Prof. Wuensch has served on innumerable Institute and Departmental committees. For many years, he has been the Departmental UROP Coordinator and has served on the Undergraduate Committee. He was Director of the Center for Materials Science and Engineering from 1988 to 1993, and spent six months as acting DMSE Department Head in 1981. He has been honored with teaching awards from MIT and with the Outstanding Educator Award from the American Ceramic Society. He is a fellow of both the American Ceramic Society and the Mineralogical Society of America. In 2003, he received an honorary doctorate in Engineering from Hanyang University, Seoul, Korea.
Professor Wuensch is well-known for exceptional teaching in 3.60, Symmetry, Structure, and Tensor Properties of Materials, a graduate subject that has been offered for at least three decades.