Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering
Materials Science Interdisciplinary Graduate Program Director
Materials
Dr. Tucker’s research focuses on degradation of materials in extreme environments and alloy development. Her research efforts leverage both modeling and experimental approaches.
Dr. Tucker earned her B.S. in Nuclear Engineering from the University of Missouri – Rolla. She attended graduate school at the University of Wisconsin – Madison as a Naval Nuclear Propulsion Fellow, where she received her M.S. and Ph.D. in Nuclear Engineering with a minor in Materials Science in 2008. After graduation, Dr. Tucker spent five years as a Principal Scientist at Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory in Schenectady, NY studying the thermal stability of structural alloys for nuclear power systems. She joined the School of Mechanical, Industrial, and Manufacturing Engineering at Oregon State University as an Assistant Professor in 2013 and was promoted to Associate Professor in 2019. In 2019 she was also appointed as the Director of the Materials Science Program at Oregon State. Dr. Tucker has an active research group focused on degradation of materials in extreme environments and alloy development. Her research efforts leverage both modeling and experimental approaches to gain fundamental understanding of materials performance.