Gross Samuels, Hattar and Klein are alumni award-winners

Our alumni are at the forefront of enhancing the material world. Arielle Gross Samuels, Khalid Hattar and John Klein are clear frontrunners in this effort having earned the Young Alumni, Loyalty, and Distinguished Merit Alumni awards, respectively. All will be recognized at the MatSE Awards Banquet held Thursday, April 13, at the Illini Union Ballroom at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

 

Arielle Gross Samuels (’11, B.S.), Young Alumni Award

Gross Samuels is the managing director and global head of marketing at Blackstone, the world’s largest alternative asset manager. She leads Blackstone’s marketing function, inclusive of brand, digital, video, design and events.

Prior to joining Blackstone, Gross Samuels worked at Meta, formally known as Facebook, serving as the global head of environmental, social and governance business and was previously the business lead of global business marketing.

Gross Samuels has also worked at Deloitte in engineering consulting. She serves on the board of the United Nations Foundation Girl Up, the 92NY CEO Council and is a founding member of Chief, a private membership network focused on connecting and supporting women executive leaders.

“This award means a great deal — I believe it’s only given out to one alum annually, and there are certainly many successful and inspiring people to celebrate from this department,” she said.

The recognition is a huge honor for Gross Samuels, who shared that she appreciates the acknowledgement even more because she doesn’t consider herself a “conventional” MatSE applicant and she hasn’t led the typical materials science and engineering career trajectory.

“(I shifted) from core engineering work to engineering consulting, to product operations, and to business and marketing,” Gross Samuels said. “So to be recognized by MatSE means that the department values diversity in its truest sense and celebrates our differences.”

“There’s no one way to act like or look like a MatSE engineer,” she added, “and I think it’s wonderful that the department honors that.”

Her legacy of an unorthodox approach and ability to think outside of the box are both mantras she hopes to pass on to the next generation of materials scientists and engineers.

"Be fearless in your pursuits of dreams and careers and inventions and ambitions,” Gross Samuels said.

 

Khalid Hattar (’09, Ph.D.), Loyalty Award

Hattar is an associate professor of engineering at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville as well as the director of the Tennessee Ion Beam Materials Lab.

He previously served as a staff scientist for 14 years at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Hattar specializes in radiation damage effects and in-situ electron microscopy in a large range of materials systems that have resulted in more than 180 peer-reviewed journal publications.

He has developed a range of in-situ techniques to explore the microstructural and property responses of materials to combined extreme conditions.

Hattar values the education and mentorship he received as a MatSE student. He gives back to his MatSE family by contributing to scholarships, mentoring, and helping students further their education and find fulfilling careers.

Looking back at past department Loyalty Award recipients, Hattar shared that he’s truly “humbled” to have his name tacked to such a prestigious list.

“I have a tremendous amount of respect for the MatSE family, for their accomplishments, mentorships and friendship throughout the years,” Hattar said. “It means a great deal to me to be recognized by the UIUC MatSE family.”

His advice for current MatSE students on achieving their dreams? Remembering that failure is just part of the process in the path to success.

“It is important to continue, to preserve, to iterate that process and continue to learn,” Hattar said. “Don’t expect things to go smoothly. Think outside the box, and don’t be afraid of new ideas that may seem crazy, because that might just be what will make the experiment succeed or be the redirection needed to find the best solution to the problem.”

 

John Klein, (’89, B.S.), Distinguished Alumni Award

Klein is the chief procurement officer at Medtronic, where he has been responsible for the centralized global supply management organization that provides spend and supplier management across the company.

Prior to joining Medtronic, Klein served as the global vice president of procurement and led the Performance Polymers Adhesives division at Avery Dennison Corporation.

Klein has also served The Valspar Corporation, now Sherwin Williams, the global leader in paints and coatings, holding several functional leadership roles, including managing the supply chain and supply management organizations for several of the business groups. In this last position, Klein led the global implementation of lean six sigma across Valspar.

He is also active with Community Food Share and various community services.

“It’s very flattering to be recognized for career accomplishments,” Klein said. “Any recognition coming from such a prestigious institution like the University (of Illinois) and from (one of) the top national MatSE program(s) is very humbling.”

Klein was “pleasantly surprised” by the recognition and sees the achievement as a huge honor.

“It’s tremendous to be recognized and mentioned in the same breath as all of the other amazing previous accomplished winners,” Klein said.

Klein recalls working with the late Richard Wool who allowed him to conduct research on biodegradable polymers that launched Klein into his first research engineering job in plastics.

It’s that collaborative spirit Klein encourages current MatSE students to embody in their work.

“Success is highly correlated to how you work and perform as a team,” Klein said. “You can go faster alone, but further when you work together.”