Robert Erck Presentation Award
By Rachel Fowler, Publisher/Editor-in-Chief | TLT Publisher's Pen September 2025
STLE renames the student poster contest to honor a longtime STLE member.
In October 2024, longtime STLE member Robert (Bob) Erck unfortunately passed away. Those who knew Erck remember him for his warm spirit, infectious positivity and unwavering passion and pride in his work.
Erck had 31 years of experience at Argonne National Laboratory, where he worked as a metallurgist in the Experimental Operations and Facilities division. His expertise included test system and component design for friction, wear and interfacial materials. Erck was highly skilled in friction and wear measurement test systems, interference microscopy, pulsed laser deposition (PLD), metal-organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD), electron beam evaporation, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and high-vacuum tribometry. He contributed to or led projects involving test machine design, PLD, flywheel energy storage, ferroelectrics and superconductors and friction of cartilage.
Erck was an excellent photographer and captured many memorable moments at STLE annual meetings with his camera. Also, over the years, he often stopped to assist stranded motorists, ultimately helping 521 people.
He was a longtime member of the STLE Chicago Section and he served as chair in 2016. Erk was actively involved in the STLE Annual Meeting Program Committee, the Synthetic Lubricants Technical Committee and the Ceramics and Composites Technical Committee. Over his career, he authored or co-authored more than 120 journal articles.
Above all, Erck took great pride in mentoring students and early-career tribologists. He influenced countless aspiring scientists and engineers through his work with Argonne student interns and his role as a chair of the STLE Student and Early Career Poster Committee. His guidance had a tremendous impact on many newcomers to the field of tribology.
Because of his work on the STLE Student and Early Career Poster Committee, STLE announced in May at the 2025 STLE Annual Meeting in Atlanta, Ga., that the student and early career poster contest has been renamed the Robert Erck Presentation Award in his honor. His legacy of dedication to the tribology field will live on through the newly renamed award program. The Robert Erck Presentation Award will be given each year at the STLE Annual Meeting in recognition of the best research posters.
The call for abstracts and poster presentation abstracts is now open for the 2026 STLE Annual Meeting: Innovating Through Tribology & Lubrication, May 17-22, 2026, in New Orleans, La. Industry professionals in the tribology and lubrication field are invited to submit abstracts from over 20 technical categories. This is your chance to share your research, innovations and ideas with your peers. The deadline for abstracts is October 1, and the deadline for poster presentation abstracts is March 1, 2026. Submit your abstract at https://stle2026.abstractcentral.com. For more information, visit www.stle.org/annualmeeting. Don't miss your opportunity to be part of this incredible event!
You can reach TLT publisher/editor-in-chief Rachel Fowler at rfowler@stle.org.