Viraj Athavale brings over 15 years of academic and technical experience in physical metallurgy to his role as a process metallurgist for heat treating at Nucor Steel Memphis, Inc. Since joining in 2023, he has led optimization efforts across two continuous lines and a batch operation, enhancing consistency, reducing rework, and meeting demanding special bar quality (SBQ) market requirements. Viraj’s expertise in time-temperature control and multistep processes — such as annealing, normalizing, and quench-and-temper — has been critical in achieving first-time-prime results across a wide range of steel grades and bar sizes.

With a calm, collaborative leadership style, Viraj builds strong relationships across operations, quality, and engineering teams, driving continuous improvement and safety on the plant floor. He received his Ph.D. in Metallurgical Engineering from Missouri S&T, where his research with Caterpillar focused on high-strength, wear-resistant cast steels.

Before joining Nucor Steel, Viraj served as an assistant research professor at Missouri S&T, where he published extensively and demonstrated a strong ability to apply academic research to industrial practice. He has authored or co-authored over 20 research articles and has received several prestigious awards, including:

• 2025 AIME Hunt-Kelly Outstanding Paper Award
• 2024 ASM Student Paper Contest Winner
• 2024 AFS Best Paper Award
• 2024 AIST Jerry Silver Award

In addition to these technical accomplishments, Viraj has contributed to the heat treat and metallurgy community, serving as a reviewer for the International Journal of Metalcasting, AFS Transactions, and the Journal of Materials Engineering and Performance, where he also serves as a member of the editorial board. Viraj leverages his industry expertise as he is actively involved ASM Heat Treat Society and serves as a member of the ASM Emerging Professionals Committee.

Viraj’s dedication to the heat treat industry, research, and emerging professionals showcases his commitment to excellence and the future of the heat treat workforce.

Nominated by: Nucor Steel Memphis, Inc.