"Melting, Smelting, Casting and Refining is an awesome and unique course where we, through hands on methods, learn about the fundementals of bulk metallurgy. Starting from 'raw ore' we go through all the steps to make a finished cast piece. We witness many of the mechanisms and phenomena that we learn about in various classes.  In this lab we routinely work with molten metal at temperatures over 1000C in home-made furnaces."

Howie Joress (class of 2012) has been a member of the Weihs research group, working of reactive materials for over two years, as well a TA for the undergraduate materials laboratory class. In his spare time he is a leader in the Johns Hopkins Outdoors Club.