Rimnac to receive Distinguished Alumni Award

	Clare Rimnac

Clare Rimnac, who earned a Ph. D. in metallurgy and materials engineering from Lehigh in 1983, is returning to her alma mater on Friday, Sept. 26, to discuss the use of new materials and designs in hip and knee joint replacements.
Rimnac’s talk, titled “Engineering the Natural History of Total Joint Replacements, will begin at 2 p.m. in Whitaker Lab Auditorium, Room 303. It is part of the materials science and engineering department’s Distinguished Alumni Seminar series.
Following her presentation, Rimnac will be given the department’s Distinguished Alumni Award. Only a dozen alumni from the department have received the award. The most recent was Alton D. Romig ’75, ’79 Ph.D., a senior vice president with Sandia National Laboratories, who won the prize in 2004.
Rimnac is the Wilbert J. Austin Professor of Engineering in the department of mechanical and aerospace engineering at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. She also holds appointments in the school’s programs in biomedical engineering and orthopaedics.
Before joining the Case Western faculty in 1996, Rimnac spent 13 years as a scientist with the department of biomechanics at the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York City.
In her Lehigh presentation, Rimnac will talk about the “natural history” of the crosslinked formulations of polyethylene that are used to mitigate loosening of artificial joint replacements that contain metal and plastic components.
Rimnac is the author of more than 90 journal articles and book chapters. She is a deputy editor for research of the Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery and has received two Hip Society Awards and a Knee Society Award. Her research is funded primarily by the National Institutes of Health.