Hardarshan Singh Valia is a geologist with the heart of a poet. He began his life in the small town of Chindwara in Central India, where he received a primary and middle school education. His parents moved seventy-eight miles south to a large city, Nagpur, where he completed high school and college education. He attended India’s Government Science College, earning a Bachelor of Science and a Gold Medal in geology. After receiving a Master of Science and Technology in Applied Geology, he pursued further studies in the US at Bryn Mawr College and Boston University. After teaching for a brief time, he left academia for industry, becoming a research engineer for Inland Steel Company in East Chicago, Indiana.

Over the years, Dr. Valia became an expert in cokemaking technologies, working on a wide range of projects: improving blast furnace performance/operation by improving coke strength after reaction (CSR) with carbon dioxide (CO2), which resulted in the development of a CSR predictive model; coke behavior in the blast furnace utilizing blast furnace tuyere sampling; modification of Chinese beehive cokes for blast furnace usability; coal selection and blend design for heat recovery/non-recovery and slot oven cokemaking; research on carbonization behavior of coal in heat recovery/non-recovery and slot oven cokemaking; use of poor-quality (low-rank) coals in cokemaking; prediction of coking quality of coal reserves; effect of oxidation on coke quality; new cokemaking technologies; coal selection and coal behavior in blast furnace pulverized coal injection; and the use of additives in cokemaking, ironmaking, and steelmaking. His patents and awards attest to his impact on the steel industry. Dr. Valia retired from ArcelorMittal as a staff scientist in 2002 and started a consulting firm, Coal Science, Incorporated.

In addition to his research efforts, Dr. Valia also enjoys writing. He has contributed to a number of books and technical papers. He has also channeled his passion for science, geology, and steel making into poetry, as well as a children’s book written in the Hindi language. He is a longtime member of AIST and attributes much of his success to his membership in the association.