Randolph Kirchain holds the S.B. from Georgia Tech (1993) and the Ph.D. from MIT (1999), both in Materials Engineering. He joined the MIT faculty in 2002 and holds joint appointments in DMSE and the Engineering Systems Division.
Professor Kirchain’s field of research is the development of tools for strategic material decisions. Strategic material decisions refer to the economic and environmental impacts of material decisions, most of which are made early in the design process. He has demonstrated that material choices should be made only after consideration of the entire life cycle, including issues of recyclability and the optimal mix of primary and secondary material streams. Only such holistic analysis can satisfy functional product requirements while meeting economic and sustainability targets. His work combines materials science, economics, and operations research--all in the context of understanding engineering technologies and processes--to develop tools for material and material processing choices.