Graduate alumnus Dimitris Vlassopoulos has won the 2019 Bingham Medal from The Society of Rheology, the top distinction in the study of the flow of materials.

Vlassopoulos has made special contributions to "the field of experimental soft matter rheology," according to the award citation. The Society of Rheology further recognized his "revolutionary discoveries in the key areas of polymer blends, branched and ring polymers, and soft colloids; and for the development of powerful rheometric and rheo-optical tools."

Vlassopoulos is the fifth winner associated with this department. Previously the medal has gone to professors William Graessley (1979), William Schowalter (1988), William Russel (1999), and graduate alumnus Norman J. Wagner (2014). Vlassopoulos obtained his Ph.D. in chemical engineering from Princeton in 1990, under the advising of William Schowalter. He is now a professor of materials science and technology at the University of Crete.

The Bingham Medal was initiated in 1948 in honor of Eugene C. Bingham, an early pioneer in the field of rheology, a term he coined.

Correction: An earlier version of this article incorrectly asserted that Vlassopoulos is the fourth winner from this department; he is the fifth.