Academic Credentials
  • Ph.D., Welding Engineering, The Ohio State University, 2022
  • M.S., Welding Engineering, The Ohio State University, 2020
  • B.S., Welding Engineering, The Ohio State University, 2016
Professional Honors
  • University Nuclear Leadership Program Research and Development Grant, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, 2022-2025
  • 1st Place, International Metallographic Contest, 2019
  • Graduate Research Fellowship, American Welding Society Foundation, 2018-2021
  • Distinguished University Fellowship, The Ohio State University, 2016-2017, 2021-2022
Professional Affiliations
  • American Welding Society – AWS
  • ASM International
  • The Association for Materials Protection and Performance – AMPP

Dr. Luther's expertise is in metallurgy, welding, and integrated computational and materials engineering. He has experience and knowledge with a range of alloy systems critical to petrochemical, nuclear, and renewable energy industries. 

Dr. Luther received his Ph.D. degree in Welding Engineering from The Ohio State University. He has expertise in failure analysis, advanced materials characterization, and electron microscopy. Dr. Luther's knowledge is applied in failure analysis and development of mechanistic models for failure phenomena. His research interests are in metallurgical data analysis and the development of machine learning and artificial intelligence models in materials science.

Before joining Exponent, Dr. Luther's dissertation research at OSU focused on quantification of the susceptibility to ductility-dip cracking (DDC) in nickel-based alloys for the nuclear energy industry. This self-proposed research was funded by the American Welding Society's Graduate Research Fellowship and OSU's Distinguished University Fellowship. Experimental work included automated robotic welding, high-temperature mechanical testing, and metallographic analysis via visible light and electron microscopy techniques including EDS and EBSD. Data analysis of the mechanical testing led to his development of a new computational method involving the correlation of imposed mechanical energy to DDC in highly restrained welds. Dr. Luther also characterized thermal faceting on DDC fracture surfaces to an unprecedented level of detail, which included atomic-scale TEM imaging, and provided key steppingstones for the future of studying and mitigating a failure mechanism which has been challenging scientists for over 100 years.

In addition, while at OSU, Dr. Luther contributed his expertise to projects involving hydrogen-induced cracking in duplex stainless steels, dilatometry analysis of advanced high strength steels, and characterization of liquation cracking/DDC in low alloy steel-to-nickel-based alloy dissimilar welds.

Aside from research experience, Dr. Luther has also served as a graduate teaching assistant for both undergraduate and graduate level materials science and welding engineering courses at OSU.