ICAL Staff

Dr. Recep Avci
ICAL Director
Bio
Earning his B.S. in Istanbul University, Dr. Avci then went on to recieve his M.S. and Ph.D. (1978) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Dr. Avci has over 100 published articles and two book chapters in a wide variety of subjects. His areas of expertise include the study of the fundamental and applied aspects of bulk and bio-materials, as well as surfaces and interfaces, using a wide variety of spectroscopic and microscopic techniques. Recent interests include the role of metallurgy in the bio-deterioration of metals and alloys.

Dr. David Mogk
Research Scientist
Bio
Dr. David Mogk earned his B.S. at the University of Michigan in 1975, whereupon he
obtained both his M.S. and Ph.D. in Geology at the University of Washington. His research
centers around the formation and evolution of the continental crust; Archean Geology;
mid-crustal petrogenetic processes; mineral analysis and spectroscopy of mineral surfaces;
and research on learning in the geosciences.

Dr. Sara Maccagnano-Zacher
ICAL Facility Manager
Bio
Sara began her scientific career using the ToF-SIMS instrument as an undergraduate physics student in ICAL at MSU. She obtained her BS in Physics at MSU-Bozeman in 2003, and her MS (2008) and PhD (2009) in Applied Physics and Engineering from Cornell University. Her graduate work centered on electron microscopy (and particularly the scanning transmission electron microscope, STEM) and the study of materials such as quantum dots.

Bret Davis
ICAL Deputy Facility Manager
Bio
Bret completed a B.S. in Physics at North Carolina State University in 2009. He then continued his education at Montana State University, earning an M.S. in Physics in 2013 under the supervision of Dr. Avci and the ICAL. His thesis was on the biocorrosion of carbon steel in a marine sulfidogenic anaerobic environment. He returned as a full-time member of ICAL in 2022.

Alex Naglich
ICAL Lab Intern
Bio
Alex came to MSU in 2017 from Flathead High School, MT, and obtained his Mechanical Engineering BS in the spring of 2021. During his undergraduate career he was fortunate enough to spend a semester (2019) at the University of Puerto Rico, Mayaguez, which was a positive and life-changing experience. Alex began working in ICAL in his last semester at MSU, and stayed on after graduating. In the fall of 2022 he will be leaving ICAL to start graduate school at Carnegie-Mellon, intending to obtain his PhD in Mechanical Engineering.