Dr. John A. Nychka

Biography

Biography John Nychka received his formal training in Metallurgical Engineering (B.Sc. 1997, University of Alberta, Co-op with Distinction), materials science & engineering (M.Eng. 1999, McMaster University), and materials (Ph.D. 2004, University of California Santa Barbara). During his bachelor's program Nychka worked as a co-op student in a forge and manufacturing facility in Edmonton, an open pit copper mine in B.C., and at a ceramics research lab in Fort Saskatchewan. It was the ceramics lab job that got him hooked on research. Receiving a Dean's Research Award in 1997 to work in the area of bioceramics also helped solidify Nychka's interest in research. After finsihing his B.Sc. he worked for a short time as an EIT for the MicroWear Corporation (now owned by Indexable Cutting Tools) before pursuing his thesis based master's degree on the characterization of microstructure and mechanical properties of SiAlON ceramics for cutting tools used in CNC machining of metallic components. Nychka's master's degree was co-funded by MicroWear and NSERC through an Industrial Post-Graduate Scholarship, and his work earned him a Best Student Poster Award at the Canadian Ceramics Society annual meeting in Toronto, 1999.

Research Interest

Nychka's teaching focus is in introductory materials engineering courses, and his long term goal is to develop visual teaching techniques through demonstrations that can be adopted by other faculty members on an international scale. Other teaching development areas include integration of formative assessment and active learning within the classroom, and in April 2009 Nychka was the PI of University of Alberta Teaching and Learning Enhancement Fund (TLEF) award (co-organized by UTS and co-sponsored by the Faculty of Engineering and the CME Department) which put on a Formative Assessment workshop with an international expert in assessment, Prof. Royce Sadler of Griffith University in Brisbane, Austrailia. In April 2009, Nychka was also a member of a faculty-student panel discussion regarding assessment issues at the University of Alberta. Nychka is dedicated to mentoring graduate students in teaching and was a faculty mentor to Mr. Nemanja Danilovic, who was a recipient of a Fraser and Shirley Russell Teaching Fellowship, 2009. Nychka's teaching style is heavily reliant upon garnering student reflection, and reinforcing concepts through real world examples and student feedback and interaction. Nychka is a self-proclaimed junk collector because having more junk in his office allows him to help students make better, and longer lasting, connections between real materials concepts and the real world. If you have any broken "stuff" that you think would make an interesting failure analysis, or is made of a magical material, and you wish to donate the item(s) please contact him!