Enhancing Safety and Security
Our faculty develop non-invasive methods to monitor the structural health of materials and to predict how and when structures and materials are likely to fail. This can help design protective materials, and enhance the safety of engineered structures.
Jack
Edwards
Dr. Edwards studies hypersonics. His research emphasizes safety, security and defense, contributing to the development of weapons and countermeasures against the weapons of others.
Landon
Grace
Dr. Grace studies the interaction between aerospace materials and their operating environment. His research focuses on determining how this interaction affects these materials over time and how the nature of these interactions can shed light on how materials fail. The goal of this research is to understand and predict failure in aircraft, spacecraft and automotive applications before they happen.
Xiaoning
Jiang
Dr. Jiang researches biomedical and biological systems along with nanoscale science and engineering. He investigates micro/nano-engineering of smart materials and their integration in advanced electromechanical devices with the goal of improving the health of biological and structural systems.
Donggun
Lee
Dr. Lee research focuses on developing novel decision-making frameworks for dynamic systems and validating them in the real world. It spans optimal control, machine learning, and mathematics to ensure robustness to uncertainties, scalability for high-dimensional systems, and task-success guarantees.
Kevin
Lyons
Dr. Lyons researches many topics related to combustion, such as flow control for propulsion applications, industrial burner design, flame stabilization and spray combustion. He works to develop benign methods of combustion and he studies flame threats for firefighters and soldiers.
Mark
Pankow
Dr. Pankow works to understand how materials behave in extreme environments. His work includes includes ballistic and blast testing to better to improve safety and security across multiple disciplines.
Kara
Peters
Dr. Peters’ research centers on integrating sensor networks into structures to detect potential failures early, enhancing safety in aircraft and naval constructions. She also investigates the behavior of advanced composites in extreme conditions, aiming to improve body armor for military personnel and advance space exploration through better space structure materials.
Afsaneh
Rabiei
Dr. Rabiei studies advanced materials, manufacturing and solid mechanics. She strives to make life safer for human beings while saving energy and raw material by developing novel materials used in devices like blast protection devices, armours and radiation shielding materials.
Larry
Silverberg
Dr. Silverberg’s researches dynamics and applies it to several disciplines, including enhancing safety and security. He studies how and why things move and his theoretical research focuses on the formulation of the equations that govern the laws of physics.
Liming
Xiong
Dr. Xiong uses atomistic and multiscale simulations to study material deformation and failure mechanisms, including dislocation plasticity and crack growth. His focus lies in developing computational tools to predict the behavior of materials used in critical infrastructures like automobiles, pipelines, and nuclear plants. Alumni from his group often work in DoE labs or industries such as Schlumberger.
Cheryl
Xu
Dr. Xu researches manufacturing, ceramic materials, sensing and controls. Her research contributes to improving turbine engine efficiency as well as developing aeronautics spacesuits and a bio-compatible bone-substitute implant.
Fuh-Gwo
Yuan
Dr. Yuan researches structural health monitoring and management. He works to provide effective and reliable information to detect structural damage at an early stage of deterioration and track the evolution regarding damage states that include damage presence, location and severity of a structure.
Mohammed
Zikry
Dr. Zikry’s research focuses on multiscale modeling and experiments. He works to rectify modeling defects in materials that range from dislocations to cracks in crystalline materials, smart polymers, additive manufacturing, materials for energy systems and high-temperature materials to make structures more safe and secure.