Prof. Arthur Motta

Arthur Motta is Professor of Nuclear Engineering and Materials Science and Engineering at Penn State University. He holds degrees in Mechanical Engineering and Nuclear Engineering from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and a Ph.D. in Nuclear Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley. Before joining the Penn State faculty in 1992, he worked as a research associate for the CEA at the Centre for Nuclear Studies in Grenoble, France, for two years and as a post-doctoral fellow for AECL at Chalk River Laboratories in Canada.  

Prof. Motta works in the area of radiation damage and environmental degradation to materials with specific emphasis in Zr alloys, with projects in the areas of mechanical testing, corrosion and radiation damage. He has special interests in using advanced characterization techniques such as x-ray scattering from synchrotron radiation sources, transmission electron microscopy, and in situ irradiation to discern fundamental mechanisms of corrosion and radiation damage. He has published over 150 refereed papers and graduated more than 30 students, 7 of whom are now university professors and many others researchers at National Laboratories, government and industry. 

Prof. Motta is a Fellow of the American Nuclear Society (ANS) and in 2015 he received the Mishima Award from the ANS for outstanding contributions in research and development work on nuclear fuel and materials. In 2016 he was awarded the ASTM William J. Kroll Medal for sustained impactful contributions to zirconium metallurgy including corrosion, hydriding, mechanical properties and irradiation effects. With his former advisor Don Olander, he co-wrote the two-volume textbook “Light Water Reactor Materials”, recently published by ANS, covering all aspects of materials in LWRs.