Jun 07, 2012

Hugo M. Ortner, Ph.D., managing editor of the International Journal of Refractory Metals and Hard Metals and retired materials and earth sciences professor from Darmstadt University of Technology, has received the 2012 H.R. “Russ” Ogden Award from ASTM International. This annual award, presented by ASTM Committee B10 on Reactive and Refractory Metals and Alloys, honors outstanding accomplishments in the science and technology of reactive and refractory metals and alloys. 

Ortner’s long career in both industry and academia has focused on the process chemistry of tungsten and molybdenum metal, and on analytical techniques applied to these metals. He earned a diploma in technical chemistry (with honors) from Graz University of Technology in Austria in 1965, and received his Ph.D. in micro- and radiochemistry from the university in 1968. Ortner was awarded Austria’s highest academic honor for graduating Ph.D. students, Sub Auspiciis Praesidentis Rei Publicae, for his doctoral work.

In 1970, Ortner joined Metallwerke Plansee in Reutte, Austria, and became head of the Analytical Chemistry Department, a position he held for 15 years. In 1990, he joined the faculty of materials and earth sciences at the Darmstadt University of Technology in Darmstadt, Germany, and assumed the role of head of the chemical analytics research group. He retired from the university in 2004, and currently serves as managing editor of the Journal of Refractory Metals and Hard Materials.

Ortner is known worldwide in the refractory metals community for his contributions to analysis of refractory metals and hard materials, and for his application of analytical techniques to the process development of refractory metals. He has published more than 200 technical papers in peer-reviewed journals and has been issued several patents. 

In addition to work for the International Journal of Refractory Metals and Hard Materials, Ortner serves on the advisory boards of the journals Talanta, Microchimica Acta and Analytical and Bioanalytical Chemistry. He is a former member of the International Organization for Standardization (Technical Committee 119 on Powder Metallurgy) and the Austrian Society of Analytical Chemistry, where he served as secretary and vice president.

ASTM PR Contact: Erin K. Brennan, Phone: 610-832-9602; ebrennan@astm.org

Release #9212