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Dr. Gregory J. Yurek Founder Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer of American Superconductor Corporation (AMSC) is a recognized global leader in the development and commercialization of breakthrough technologies for large-scale electrical systems. Under Dr. Yurek’s leadership American Superconductor has become the world market and technology leader in high temperature superconductor (HTS) products and the leading vendor of advanced power electronics-based grid stabilization solutions.
Dr. Yurek founded AMSC in April 1987 with three fellow Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) professors. In 1989 he became president and chief executive officer of AMSC and was named chairman of the board in 1991. He took the company public in 1991.
From 1976 to 1988 Dr. Yurek was on the faculty of MIT’s Department of Materials Science and Engineering where he focused his research and teaching on the thermodynamics and rapid solidification processing of metals and ceramics and the development of corrosion-resistant materials work that led to the invention of methods for manufacturing HTS wire. The results of this work became the basis for founding AMSC. Dr. Yurek also co-founded and was co-director of MIT’s H.H. Uhlig Corrosion Laboratory.
Prior to joining the faculty at MIT Dr. Yurek was a research scientist in the Metals and Ceramics Division of Oak Ridge National Laboratory where his research on oxidation of reactor core materials under accident conditions established the foundation for the government code on operating power levels in pressurized water nuclear reactors.
Dr. Yurek has won numerous awards and fellowships including the Institute of Electrical Engineers (IEE) 2003 Achievement Medal for his work on the manufacturing of HTS materials as a Fellow of Britain’s Institute of Electrical Engineers. He was also the first non-Japanese recipient of the Award of Merit conferred by the Japanese Science and Technology Agency. From 1973 to 1974 he served as a NATO Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Clausthal-Zellerfeld in Germany.
He has authored more than 60 scientific and technical publications and has nine U.S. patents issued in his name.
Dr. Yurek is a member of the Board of Directors of Nanosys Inc. He is also a member of the Industrial Advisory Board of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at Penn State University. He is past Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Council on Superconductivity for American Competitiveness and was a member of the Industrial Overview Committee for the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Laboratory Superconductivity Pilot Centers.
A Pennsylvania native Dr. Yurek holds a Ph.D. in metallurgical engineering from Ohio State University and B.S. and M.S. degrees in metallurgy from Pennsylvania State University. | 