Hackney Award

T. MORRIS HACKNEY ENDOWED FACULTY LEADERSHIP

The T. Morris Hackney Endowed Faculty Leadership Award honors a faculty member who exemplifies the constant guidance and leadership necessary to make the Lee J. Styslinger Jr. College of Engineering exceptional. This award was established as a tribute to T. Morris Hackney and was made possible by the contributions of John H. Josey and his son, Howard Josey. Dr. Luke Brewer is the 2026 recipient of this award. 

Brewer is a nationally recognized professor and researcher whose career, from industry laboratories to academia, reflects a lifelong commitment to advancing future generations of engineers. 

Brewer attended Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, where he earned bachelor’s degrees in applied mathematics and materials science and engineering as well as his Ph.D. in materials science and engineering in 2001. 

Following a career as an electron microscopist, metallurgist, and specialist in materials simulation at research laboratories, Brewer returned to academia in 2010 as a faculty member in the mechanical and aerospace engineering department at the Naval Postgraduate School.

Brewer has served as an associate professor and professor in the Department of Metallurgical and Materials Engineering in the Lee J. Styslinger Jr. College of Engineering since 2015. He has taught a variety of courses, including physical metallurgy, welding metallurgy, and scanning electron microscopy. While at UA, he has mentored 16 doctoral students and eight master’s students. He has led 39 research programs as the principal investigator with total funding of $14.4 million.   

He established the cold spray deposition laboratory in 2015, leading UA to international prominence in this technology over the past decade. Working with the College, Brewer founded the Alabama Atomization Facility in 2021 — one of only four atomization facilities for making metallic powders at U.S. universities. In 2023, he created the Center for Advanced Manufacturing and Materials Design Integration with former UA professor Dr. Charles Monroe. In 2025, Brewer took on the additional position of associate department head for graduate studies in the Department of Metallurgical and Materials Engineering.  

Brewer lives with his wife, Amanda, and their daughters Abigail, Annabelle, and Adelaide in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.

T. MORRIS HACKNEY ENDOWED FACULTY LEADERSHIP THROUGH THE YEARS

2026: Dr. Luke Brewer
2025: Dr. C. Heath Turner
2024: Dr. Derek G. Williamson
2023: Dr. Ajay Agrawal
2022: Mark L. Weaver
2020: Bharat Balasubramanian
2019: Kenneth G. Ricks
2018: Gregory B. Thompson
2017: W. Edward Back
2016: John Baker
2015: Jay K. Lindly
2014: Susan L. Burkett
2013: Tim A. Haskew
2012: Allen S. Parrish
2011: K. Clark Midkiff Jr.
2010: Kenneth J. Fridley
2009: Viola Acoff
2008: Beth Todd
2007: Kevin Whitaker
2006: David B. Brown
2005: Charles L. Karr
2004: John Wiest
2003: David Cordes
2002: Robert Griffin
2001: Stuart Bell
2000: Lloyd “Pete” Morley
1999: Verle N. Schrodt
1998: Daniel Turner
1997: Gary C. April