A decade or so ago, after becoming intrigued with watching people make knives from scratch on YouTube, Josh Baston decided to give it a go himself.
As a middle school student, the Woodbury, Minnesota, native transformed his family’s backyard firepit into a furnace, using his mother’s hair dryer as a bellows. The makeshift design worked: Baston shaped some 1080 steel into a couple of small blades, heated them up and quench-hardened them in a small vat of vegetable oil, making them 10 times harder.
The hair dryer didn’t survive, but Baston’s interest was stoked. “I had no idea what was going on inside of the steel, but that was kind of my introduction to materials science,” he says.
Now, entering the 2024 spring semester at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the materials science and engineering senior is quite aware of what’s happening inside that steel. In fact, he’s well-versed in materials science and metallurgy after working in the lab on high-temperature materials for aerospace applications—and in the process, earning some of the highest awards in his discipline.
When he came to UW-Madison, Baston thought he would study chemical engineering. But taking a class on metallurgy during his sophomore year with John Perepezko, a professor of materials science and engineering who focuses on developing high-temperature alloys, reignited Baston’s passion for metals.
The July after taking that class, Baston attended the 2022 EAA AirVenture, a massive annual aviation celebration in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, where he was in awe of the advanced materials in the high-end jet engines. Baston says that summer was a turning point in his career goals, pointing him towards aerospace. “I remember thinking: ‘Okay, I need to double down. I know what I want to accomplish. Now let’s make it happen,’” he says.
Around the same time, he experienced a personal setback. Deeply involved with the Wisconsin Track Club, running in a dozen NCAA division II and III meets, Baston suffered a hip injury while competing in the 2022 Badger Invitational cross country race. “It sucked,” he says, “but at the same time, it was when I was getting really involved with research and doubling down on school. Running 80 miles a week takes time. So, it was probably a good thing I was able to focus more on my education.”
Going into his junior year, Baston joined Perepezko’s lab to focus on high-temperature metal alloys for aerospace applications, where he says his education has made the biggest strides. He has worked on a variety of projects including silica-forming molybdenum alloys, high-temperature oxidation resistance and laser-based additive manufacturing of refractory alloys.
He also leads his own project on the novel creation of nanoporous metal oxides via oxidative dealloying “John has really done a lot for me and he is a wealth of knowledge. I’ve enjoyed my time in his lab,” he says.
Baston has received a string of honors for his academic work and research. In January 2023, he was the Universities of Wisconsin nominee for the highly competitive Goldwater Scholarship. In May 2023, he was named an Astronaut Scholar, a prestigious award for STEM students administered by a group of former astronauts. In summer 2023, he continued his research at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in Germany after receiving a grant from the German Research Foundation (DFG), and in October 2023 he was the sole recipient of ASM-International’s Founder’s Scholarship, the largest merit-based undergraduate award for materials science in the United States. And that’s just a sample of the many other scholarships and awards he’s received.
Besides being a devoted researcher and athlete, Baston is dedicated to his fellow MS&E students and the materials science community. He has served as the co-president of the Materials Advantage and American Foundry Society student organizations, the CAD/structures leader of the Engineers Without Borders-Guatemala team, and is currently a course assistant for MSE 350: Introduction to Materials Science.
Baston plans to continue his research of high-temperature materials and additive manufacturing in graduate school and hopes that will lead to a career in research for an aerospace company down the line.
The best advice for undergraduates, he says, is to be consistent and their own advocate. “I am almost never the brightest person in the classroom,” he says. “But what I have is consistency; I try not to have bad days or bad exams. I attend every class, every discussion, and office hours, even if I don’t have questions. People recognize that behavior and respect it.”
Additionally, Baston has said that the ability to reach out, ask questions, and not being afraid of rejection was essential to some of his accomplishments. “It’s not that other people aren’t willing to help you, but if you never ask for it they will focus on their own priorities.”
He also highly suggests taking a position as an undergraduate researcher and trying to learn beyond the classroom, which has opened new doors; he’s already been to five or six materials science professional conferences and always attends ASM meetings in Milwaukee, taking along fellow students. “When you go to these events, you hear about new research that’s coming out and talk to other professionals,” he says. “More importantly, you’ll learn stuff that you’ll never encounter in the classroom and see how your education applies to post-graduation environments. They’re very different.”
Featured photo of Josh Baston by Joel Hallberg