Student Spotlight: Blaze Heckert

Oklahoma State University-Tulsa is home to the Materials Science and Engineering program in the Helmerich Research Center and researchers like graduating Ph.D student Blaze Heckert.

Heckert carved a name for himself with his chemistry expertise and love for developing new materials.

He joined Dr. Raman Singh’s research group at the start of the fall 2017 semester. Prior to his studies at OSU-Tulsa, he earned a Bachelor of Science in Biology and a Master of Polymer Chemistry from Pittsburg State University.

As the only graduate student in Singh’s lab with a strong chemistry background, Heckert spent a considerable amount of time setting up a functional synthetic chemistry lab. Heckert has focused on improving the interfacial properties of carbon fiber reinforced composites through chemical modification. To characterize the interfacial properties between the fiber and matrix, Blaze spent several months developing a tensile testing machine that was capable of analyzing these micro-mechanical properties.

Heckert was selected by NASA to present his work at the International Astronautical Congress (IAC) in 2018 at their annual meeting in Bremen, Germany. In 2020, he received the Materials Science and Engineering Outstanding Graduate award and the CEAT Dean’s Outstanding Graduate award for his achievements over the last three years at OSU.

After completing his Ph.D. this summer, he hopes to join a company with a strong interest in the research and development of new technologies for both commercial and governmental applications.

For more information on programs and research related to Materials Science and Engineering, visit https://tulsa.okstate.edu/mse.