20 Minutes With Sanjay Sampath

By Nicole Gleeson, Editorial Coordinator | TLT 20 Minutes December 2025

This distinguished professor at Stony Brook University discusses thermal spray coatings and the gratifying experiences of mentoring students.
Sanjay Sampath - The Quick File
Dr. Sanjay Sampath is currently distinguished professor of materials science and engineering at Stony Brook University (SUNY) and director of the Center for Thermal Spray Research (CTSR), an interdisciplinary industry-university partnership in the field of thermal spray materials processing and surface engineering. CTSR was created in 1996 through the National Science Foundation’s Materials Research Science and Engineering Centers (MRSEC). He received his doctorate degree from SUNY in materials science in 1989. After graduating, he spent four years at GTE Sylvania involved in research, development and processing of refractory metal compounds and composites. Upon joining the faculty at SUNY in 1993, Dr. Sampath has directed research efforts on various federal and industrially funded programs. Under the auspices of the NSF Center, he directed a group of a dozen or so interdisciplinary faculty members toward fundamental understanding of thermal spray processes, materials and applications. The self-sustaining center (since 2005) is home to the Industrial Consortium for Thermal Spray Technology comprising of 35 leading companies aimed at knowledge transfer from fundamental research to applications. He was also principal investigator on the DARPA Mesoscale Integrated Conformal Electronics (MICE) project enabling 3D printing of sensors via direct write thermal spray technology. 

Dr. Sampath has 180 journal publications to his credit, 13 patents and is the winner of several best paper awards. He has advised more than 40 master of science degree and doctoral students, over 20 post-doctoral fellows and more than 100 undergraduates. He received the SUNY Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Scholarship and Creative Activities in its inaugural year, was elected Fellow of ASM International, was recipient of a 2007 R&D 100 award for developing direct write technology and was inducted as Fellow of the American Ceramic Society. In 2011, he was recognized as a State University of New York Distinguished Professor, the highest faculty designation of the SUNY system. In 2015 he was inducted into the Thermal Spray Society Hall of Fame. In 2017 he received the Application to Practice Award from The Minerals, Metals & Materials Society (TMS). In 2019 he received the John Jeppson Award from the American Ceramic Society and the 2020 Albert Sauveur Award from ASM International. In 2023 he was elected as Academician of the World Academy of Ceramics and receive the Rishi Raj Medal for Innovation and Commercialization from American Ceramic Society in 2024.
 

Sanjay Sampath
TLT: How did you decide to lead research on thermal spray coating technologies?
Sampath: I came to the U.S. in 1985 after my undergraduate in metallurgy in India with an interest in rapidly solidified metallic alloys. My research advisor Prof. Herman, who was a well known metallurgist, had initiated research in thermal spray as a scientific approach to rapidly solidify metals and ceramics. Once I started working on thermal spray toward my degree “I caught the bug” and 40 years later I can’t shake it off. After graduation I worked in industry to create thermal spray powders and then returned to Stony Brook and worked with my colleagues Prof. Herman and Prof. Chris Berndt to establish a Center of Excellence in Thermal Spray at Stony Brook via the National Science Foundation MRSEC program. Since 2001 I have been leading this center along with many related activities.

Thermal spray is a very interesting technology. It pushes boundaries of materials processing to the extreme leading to novel phases, microstructures and architectures. At the same time thermal spray is also a very practical technology with wide ranging industrial applications. This is what makes it exciting: very cool science while also enabling applications. 

I have thoroughly enjoyed this. As I often say, thermal spray is a 100 year technology and will easily be around another 100 years. It’s just too unique a process.

TLT: How did the thermal spray coating and other surface engineering technologies developed at the Center for Thermal Spray Research (CTSR) impact tribology applications, such as friction, wear and lubrication?
Sampath: Thermal spray produces overlay coatings. Such coatings are of course used for many applications: thermal and electrical insulation, wear and corrosion protection and even functional surfaces. My involvement with tribology began early: during graduate school, I worked on cavitation erosion properties of sprayed coatings, and when I started work in industry I was introduced to thermal sprayed molybdenum coatings, which were used in piston and synchronizer rings in the automotive industry and in plastic extrusion. Molybdenum forms a lubricious oxide which was considered advantageous in sliding contact. I helped synthesize and productize several molybdenum alloys and composites for thermal spray some of which are still being used today. Concurrently, I also was involved in thermal sprayed carbides (tungsten carbide [WC] and chromium carbide [CrC]) for abrasive and erosive wear resistance. These coatings are deposited and used extensively for wear applications in oil/gas, aerospace, steel mill rolls, etc. Millions of pounds of carbide powder are thermal sprayed each year. I worked on fundamentals of carbide materials deposition (they undergo chemical changes during processing) aspects of strength and toughness of the coating due to the presence of interfaces and non-equilibrium phases and their implications on wear. I wrote a few papers for STLE-affiliated journal Tribology Transactions which made significant impact both from science and technology.

TLT: What has been your most rewarding accomplishment throughout your career at academia?
Sampath: During my 30 year career, I have advised over 30 doctoral students, 40 master of science degree students, 35 post-docs and probably over 100 undergraduates. I enjoyed the mentoring process and am especially gratified to see them succeed. I have also enjoyed collaborations with my peers both within the U.S. and internationally. In addition, I have been very fortunate to work with industry through our one-of-a-kind Consortium for Thermal Spray Technology program through which I have had the opportunity to educate industrial engineers on the virtues of thermal spray technology. Lastly, several of my academic concepts have been translated to industrial practice. It’s been rewarding on multiple fronts from pedagogy to innovation to transformation of this unique technology.


A dedication plaque from Sanjay Sampath’s colleagues at the Center for Thermal Spray Research recognizes his contributions.

TLT: What is the No. 1 piece of advice you would give to a person who might be interested in starting a career in coatings and surface engineering?
Sampath: Surface engineering is a key enabler in engineering, but it is considered a special process and not generally part of mainstream unit operations. For example, steel is produced as commodity which then gets machined or forged and finished to a final shape. There are classes of materials with known attributes that can be used in a variety of applications.

Surface engineering is more application dependent. One needs to understand the environment (and the nuances) and how the material might interact, and then appropriate surface engineering solutions can be crafted. So it’s a bit more strategic in the sense; every industry/application can have different perspectives on how to engineer the surface. It has largely been an “art” form with much of the knowledge residing within the companies. Even good academic training and research programs won’t cover the specifics of applications and processes to address them. As such it would require a lot of experiential learning.
For those interested in joining the field, it’s a very important and rich field but one has to learn on the job, and it might take many years to learn it well.

TLT: What are some of the most technical concepts or topics that you have encountered throughout your career?
Sampath: Mechanics of layered materials, non-equilibrium phenomena and metastability; subjects that are not commonly taught in engineering curriculum become very important in real world environments. Materials never behave in simple predictable ways, and the environment is always changing and challenging.

TLT: What is the one thing you wish you would have learned earlier in your career?
Sampath: I would say two things: I am mainly an experimentalist although I collaborated on modeling. I think having a stronger physics background to tackle complex modeling would have been very useful. Second thing is data science and statistics. Although we understand simple elements, in retrospect one realizes there are a lot of nuances in the data. I am able to address them much better now, but I wish I had understood the elements early on in my career.

Collaboration of course is a highly beneficial strategy, and I have benefited extensively through interaction with interdisciplinary colleagues.

You can reach Sanjay Sampath at sanjay.sampath@stonybrook.edu.