Professors William D. Nix

William D. Nix

Lee Otterson Professor in the School of Engineering, Emeritus
Stanford University

William Nix obtained a BS in Metallurgical Engineering from San Jose State College and an MS and PhD in Metallurgical Engineering and Materials Science, respectively, from Stanford University. He joined the faculty at Stanford in 1963, was appointed professor in 1972, and was named the Lee Otterson Professor in the School of Engineering in 1989. He served as chair of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering from 1991 to 1996 and became professor emeritus in 2003.

Professor Nix has been engaged in research on the mechanical properties of solids and has been principally concerned with the relation between structure and mechanical properties of materials in both thin film and bulk form. He taught courses on dislocation theory and mechanical properties of materials, co-authored 500 publications in these and related fields, and trained 79 PhD students in these subjects during his years at Stanford.