All Faculty
Department Chair
Ken Gall
Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science
Research Interests: Materials science, mechanical properties, metals and polymers. Specialties: Shape memory materials, biomaterials, 3D printing.
Primary Faculty
Gaurav Arya
Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Sci
Research Interests: Molecular modeling, molecular simulations, statistical mechanics, coarse-graining, machine learning, polymer and colloidal physics, polymer-nanoparticle composites, chromatin biophysics, DNA nanotechnology, viral DNA packaging, single-molecule force spectroscopy, nanoscale transport
Adrian Bejan
J.A. Jones Professor of Mechanical Engineering
Research Interests: A wide range of topics in thermodynamics, heat transfer, fluid mechanics, convection and porous media. More recently, he developed the constructal law of design in nature.
Donald B. Bliss
Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science
Research Interests: Fluid mechanics, aerodynamics, acoustics, and structural dynamics
Volker Blum
Associate Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science
Research Interests: Computational predictions and understanding of new materials related to energy and electronics, as well as molecular structure and spectroscopies, based on the "first principles" of quantum mechanics. Much of this work is directly connected to ongoing developments of new algorithms and...
Leila Bridgeman
Postdoctoral Associate
Research Interests: Robust and optimal control, linear matrix inequalities (LMIs), model predictive control (MPC), delayed systems, input-output stability, passivity.
Catherine Brinson
Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering & Materials Science (effective September 1, 2017)
Research Interests: Professor L. Catherine Brinson's research interests lie in the study of advanced material systems and developing new methods to characterize and to model material behavior. Her lab’s research objective is to characterize and model advanced materials systems, at scales spanning the range of...
Chuan-Hua Chen
Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering & Materials Science
Research Interests: Our research deals with experimental and theoretical investigations of small-scale physicochemical hydrodynamics, where transport and interfacial phenomena closely interact with each other. By manipulating surface tension actively and passively, e.g. using electric fields and surface structures, we...
F. Hadley Cocks
Professor with Tenure in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science
Research Interests: A wide variety of areas in materials science, including crystal growth, mechanical properties of kidney stones, lunar science, diffraction optics, materials for radiation detection, and radiation shielding.
Mary "Missy" Cummings
Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science
Research Interests: Human-unmanned vehicle interaction, human-autonomous system collaboration, human-systems engineering, public policy implications of unmanned vehicles, and the ethical and social impact of technology.
Stefano Curtarolo
Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science
Research Interests: Nanoscale science of energy, computational materials science, nanotube growth characterization, alloy theory, superlubricity on quasicrystals, superconductivity in metal borides, genetic approaches to QM predictions of materials structures, materials for nuclear detection. His multidisciplinary...
Olivier Delaire
Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science
Research Interests: Olivier Delaire is an expert in the field of atomic dynamics in materials, with 15-plus years of experience in both experimental and computational studies of lattice dynamics (phonons).
Earl H. Dowell
William Holland Hall Professor of Mechanical Engineering in the Edmund T. Pratt, Jr. School of Engineering
Research Interests: Aeroelasticity, the study of the dynamic interaction between an aerodynamic flow and an elastic structure, such as aircraft wings in high speed flight, long span bridges and tall buildings responding to wind loadings, or airflow through the mouth and lungs. Dr. Dowell has also conducted research in...
Linda Franzoni
Professor of the Practice
Research Interests: Franzoni specializes in acoustics, and structural dynamics and vibration. Practical applications of this work include: acoustics of enclosures (rooms or vehicle interiors) and underwater acoustics (acoustic radiation and scattering from submarines).
Kenneth C. Hall
Julian Francis Abele Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science in the Edmund T. Pratt, Jr. School of Engineering
Research Interests: Unsteady aerodynamics, structural dynamics, and aeroelasticity of turbomachinery and aerospace vehicles. Novel approaches to modeling complex physical phenomena using computational fluid dynamics. Optimization and sensitivity analysis. Fluid dynamics of animal propulsion.
Kris Hauser
Associate Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Research Interests: Research interests include robot motion planning and control, semiautonomous robots, and integrating perception and planning. Past applications of this research have included automated vehicle collision avoidance, robotic manipulation, robot-assisted medicine, and legged locomotion.
Nico Hotz
Assistant Professor of the Practice in the Department of Mechanical Engineering & Materials Science
Research Interests: My research interests are in the area of interfacial transport phenomena and thermodynamics in energy technology including phenomena at the micro- and nanoscale. Thermodynamics aspects of photovoltaics, novel sustainable energy conversion technologies, and chemical reactions are an essential part...
Laurens E. Howle
Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science
Research Interests: Hydroelastic modeling of deformable structures, transport in thermal and chemical systems, experimental and computational fluid dynamics, nonlinear and complex systems, heat and mass transport in biological systems, stability of fluid motions, machine learning, data mining, econophysics, reduced...
Tony Jun Huang
Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science
Research Interests: Acoustofluidics, microfluidics, lab-on-a-chip, biomedical micro-electro-mechanical systems (BioMEMS), optofluidics, plasmofluidics.
Robert Kielb
Associate Professor of the Practice in the Department of Mechanical Engineering & Materials Science
Research Interests: Unsteady aerodynamics, aeroelasticity, mistuning, damping, and probabilistic methods. Principal investigator on AFOSR, DARPA, NASA, and Industrial funded research projects. Provides consultion services to turbine engine companies, including most major companies. Teaches undergraduate and graduate...
Josiah D. Knight
Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science
Research Interests: Fluid mechanics, thermodynamics, heat transfer, and dynamics
Brian Mann
Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science
Research Interests: Nonlinear dynamics and vibration utilizing analytical, numerical, and experimental techniques. Fundamental investigations of phenomenon and application areas where dynamical systems theory plays an important role.
Piotr E. Marszalek
Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science
Research Interests: The invention of the atomic force microscope (AFM) in 1986 by Binnig, Quate and Gerber (Phys. Rev. Lett. 56, 930) started a revolution in many branches of science by realizing an unprecedented possibility to visualize and manipulate individual molecules under ambient conditions including water,...
David Mitzi
Simon Family Professor
Research Interests: Dr. Mitzi's current research interests involve making emerging photovoltaic materials more effective, cost-efficient and competitive for the energy market.
David Needham
Professor with Tenure in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science
Research Interests: Dr. Needham's research program combines the fields of Materials Science with Colloid and Surface Chemistry focusing on "Biological and other Soft Wet Materials". The program is in the general area of forming, coating and encapsulation of solid, liquid and gaseous particles in the colloidal size...
Christine Payne
Associate Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science (beginning January 1, 2018)
Research Interests: Molecular mechanisms by which cells interact with materials, specifically nanoparticles and conducting polymers, with applications in nanomedicine and environmental exposure
Michael Rubinstein
Professor in the Departments of Mechanical Engineering & Materials Science, Biomedical Engineering, Chemistry and Physics (beginning January 2018)
Research Interests: Polymer Theory and Computer Simulations
Sophia Santillan
Assistant Professor of the Practice of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science
Research Interests: Engineering education, nonlinear systems, structural mechanics and numerical methods.
Edward J. Shaughnessy
Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science
Research Interests: Analytical, experimental, and computational studies of flow problems arising in biology, medicine, and biotechnology as well as in more traditional mechanical engineering applications.
Rebecca Simmons
Assistant Professor of the Practice in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Material Science
Shyni Varghese
Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science
Research Interests: Musculoskeletal tissue repair, disease biophysics and organ-on-a-chip technology.
Lawrence N. Virgin
Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science
Research Interests: Study of the behavior of nonlinear dynamical systems, including the investigation of the fundamental nature of nonlinear systems based on a mathematical description of their underlying equations of motion and the application of recent results from nonlinear dynamical systems theory to problems of...
Jennifer L West
Fitzpatrick Family University Professor of Engineering
Research Interests: West's research in biomaterials, nanotechnology and tissue engineering involves the synthesis, development, and application of novel biofunctional materials, and the use of biomaterials and engineering approaches to study biological problems.
Benjamin Yellen
Associate Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science
Research Interests: Our group currently has two main research activities. Project #1. Development of single cell random access memory. The goal of this project is to develop an automated system for reading and writing single cells (e.g., immune cells, yeast cells, etc.) to arbitrary sites on a micro fabricated chip...
Stefan Zauscher
Sternberg Family Professor of Mechanical Engineering & Materials Science
Research Interests: Nano-mechanical and nano-tribological characterization (elasticity, friction, adhesion) of materials including organic thin films; self-assembled monolayers, polymeric gels, and cellulosics; Fabrication of polymeric nanostructures by scanning probe lithography; Colloidal probe and atomic force...
Michail Zavlanos
Assistant Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science
Research Interests: A range of topics in the emerging discipline of networked dynamical systems, which studies systems of physical agents interacting via a communication medium in search of joint control principles that determine network behavior. Focus on robotic and sensor networks, with applications in formation...
Pei Zhong
Anderson-Rupp Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science
Research Interests: Ultrasound-targeted gene delivery and activation; Synergistic combination of high-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) and immunotherapy for cancer treatment; Innovations in shock wave lithotripsy (SWL) technology; and Mechanics and bioeffects of acoustic cavitation.
Secondary Faculty
Wilkins Aquino
Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Research Interests: Computational mechanics, finite element methods, computational inverse problems and their applications in engineering and biomedicine, scientific computing, computational acoustics and acoustics-structure interaction, coupled chemo-mechanics (e.g. electrochemistry-mechanics).
Ashutosh Chilkoti
Alan L. Kaganov Professor of Biomedical Engineering
Research Interests: Chilkoti's research focuses on biomolecular materials and biointerface science and emphasizes the development of applications that span the range from bioseparations, biosensors, patterned biomaterials, and targeted drug delivery.
Patrick James Codd
Assistant Professor of Neurosurgery
Research Interests: Minimally invasive neurosurgical device development and neurosurgical robotics.
John Everett Dolbow
Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Research Interests: Modeling quasi-static and dynamic fracture of structural components, the evolution of interfaces with nonlinear constitutive laws, and developing models for stimulus-responsive hydrogels
Dennis Onyeka Frank-Ito
Assistant Professor of Surgery
Research Interests: Modeling the effects of human airway anatomy on respiratory airflow patterns, deposition of inhaled gases and particle transport using computational fluid dynamics.
Henri P. Gavin
Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Research Interests: Structural dynamics, earthquake engineering, seismic hazard mitigation for building contents, nonlinear dynamics, system identification, optimal control with application to systems with controllable damping.
Jeffrey Glass
Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Research Interests: The growth and characterization of thin films for electronics, primarily diamond, zinc oxide and silicon carbide; chemical vapor deposition, sputtering, materials analysis and electronic properties.
Tomasz Hueckel
Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Research Interests: mechanics of materials, theoretical soil mechanics, rock mechanics, and environmental geomechanics, theory of plasticity
Rendon C. Nelson
Reed and Martha Rice Professor of Radiology, in the School of Medicine
Research Interests: Diagnostic imaging of the liver, detection and characterization of focal and diffuse processes by US, CT and MRI; percutaneous image-guided thermal ablation of hepatic and renal tumors.
Amanda Randles
Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering
Research Interests: Randle's research in biomedical simulation and high performance computing focuses on the development of new computational tools that she uses to provide insight into the localization and development of human diseases ranging from atherosclerosis to cancer.
Guglielmo Scovazzi
Associate Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Research Interests: Finite element methods, computational fluid and solid mechanics, multiphase porous media flows, computational methods for fluid and solid materials under extreme load conditions, turbulent flow computations, instability phenomena.
Benjamin J. Wiley
Associate Professor of Chemistry
Research Interests: In the Wiley Group, we make new nanomaterials by controlling the assembly of atoms in solution, and explore applications for nanomaterials in medicine, catalysis, plasmonics, and electronics. Our goal is to precisely control the size, shape, and composition of materials on the nanometer scale to...
Thomas Peter Witelski
Professor in the Department of Mathematics
Research Interests: My primary area of expertise is the solution of nonlinear ordinary and partial differential equations via perturbation methods. Using asymptotics along with a mixture of other applied mathematical techniques in analysis and scientific computing I study a broad range of applications in physical...
Research Faculty
Regis Kopper
Assistant Research Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science
Research Interests: 3D user interfaces, novel interaction techniques and immersive display systems.
Jeffrey P. Thomas
Assistant Research Professor in the Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science
Research Interests: Computational aeroelasticity.
Cormac H Toher
Assistant Research Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science
Research Interests: Computational materials science, with a focus on the development of high-throughput computational materials design frameworks such as AFLOW (Automatic FLOW).
Adjunct Faculty
Silvia Ferrari
Adjunct Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science
Research Interests: Design and analysis of methods and algorithms for learning and computational intelligence. Theory and approximation properties of network models, such as neural and probabilistic networks, for the purpose of enhancing their learning abilities and improving reliability. Approximate dynamic...
Jason Jerald
Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science
Tod A. Laursen
Adjunct Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science
Research Interests: Engineering computing and engineering science, continuum mechanics, engineering analysis, finite element methods, and the use of finite element methods for the solution of nonlinear problems, with a special interest in the modeling of physical systems exhibiting contact and friction phenomena in...
Genevieve Lipp
Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science
Sylvie R. Lorente
Adjunct Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science
Research Interests: Lorente's research interests encompass vascularized materials, constructal theory, porous media, fluid mechanics, heat and mass transfer.
Asher Rubinstein
Adjunct Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science
Visiting Faculty
Dean Culver
Visiting Scholar in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science
Research Interests: Nonlinear dynamics, vibration analysis, applied mathematics.
Emeritus Faculty
Devendra P. Garg
Professor Emeritus in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science
Research Interests: The main emphasis of research in the Robotics and Manufacturing Automation Laboratory is on the control of multiple robots that can work together. Multiple robotic control of the two ABB industrial robotic arms was sponsored by the National Science Foundation. The sensor modeling, data acquisition...
Teh Yu Tan
Professor Emeritus in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science
Research Interests: Impurity diffusion mechanisms and point defects in silicon and III-V compounds; line defects; precipitation and gettering; kinetic processes of defect evolution; x-ray scattering and electron microscopy; crystal growth in nano-scale
