March 2024
Presentations at TMS 2024 Annual Meeting and Exhibition
Prof. Sills and Yiqun Xu presented talks at the conference about their ongoing research on the micromechanics of interfaces and nanocomposites.
Welcome to Nate Paddock!
Nate is the latest PhD student to join the group, he will be focusing on the deformation mechanisms of particle-fluid systems for his thesis research.
Trevor Murray successfully defends his Master’s thesis titled “Migration Rate of a Discoherent Martensitic Phase Boundary”
Former group member Keith Horne is awarded the prestigious GEM Fellowship
February 2024
Prof. Sills teaches molecular dynamics and machine learning to high school students
Prof. Sills had the pleasure of teaching 3 high school physics classes at Lake Brantley High School in Longwood, FL about materials science. The students learned about the atomic structure of materials, molecular dynamics simulations, and how neural networks are used in materials science. They then performed their own simulations and trained neural networks. It was a great experience – a huge thank you to Stan Cutler of Lake Brantley High School for handing over his classroom for the day!
February 2024
Rutgers TechAdvance program to fund new Postdoctoral Associate
Prof. Sills was awarded a grant from the Rutgers TechAdvance program to fund a 1-year Postdoctoral Associate position to advance development of the finite-element-based physics-informed neural network (FE-PINN) technology developed by his group. Qualified applicants can apply here.
January 2024
Prof. Sills becomes Editor-in-Chief of Journal of Materials Science: Materials Theory
On the 1st of the year, Prof. Sills took over as Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Materials Science: Materials Theory (formerly known as Materials Theory). It will be his privilege to lead the journal as it joins the Journal of Materials Science family.
December 2023
Congratulations to George Wenson and Keith Horne!
George successfully defended his Master’s thesis titled “Intergranular Fracture and Toughening of Heterogeneous, Brittle Polycrystals”. Keith graduated with his B.S. in Materials Science and Engineering.
October 2023
New research project funded by the Naval Nuclear Lab kicks-off
A new research project began in the group with funding from the Naval Nuclear Laboratory. The research is focused on understanding the deformation behavior of stainless steels.
October 2023
Prof. Sills presents Invited talk at the SES 2023 meeting
Prof. Sills had the pleasure of presenting an Invited talk at the Society of Engineering Sciences meeting in Minneapolis in the symposium titled “Advances in multiscale modeling and machine learning in nanomechanics”.
September 2023
Welcome to new Master’s students Trevor Murray and George Wenson!
July 2023
Former postdoc joins IIT faculty
Dr. Nipal Deka, a former postdoc in the group, joined the Mechanical Engineering faculty at the Indian Institute of Technology – Jodhpur. Congratulations to Nipal!
July 2023
mMOD group attends USNCCM in Albuquerque
The group attended the US National Congress on Computational Mechanics, presenting three talks, three posters, and chairing a minisymposium.
May 2023
Prof. Sills wins CAREER award from the NSF Mechanics of Materials and Structures program
The award is to perform research on the nature of fracture in metals with the project titled “Using Physics-Based Machine Learning to Reconcile the Crack Tip with the Plastic Zone during Fracture of Metals”, and to construct simulation-based high school science curriculum in collaboration with the National Science Teaching Association.
May 2023
ILDA released for public use!
The code for Interfacial Line Defect Analysis (ILDA) is now released for use in OVITO Pro – see the Codes page for more information.
May 2023
Congratulations to Pranav!
He completed his Master’s of Engineering degree – well done!
May 2023
Prof. Sills gives Invited presented at USACM workshop
Prof. Sills gave an Invited presentation and participated in the US Association of Computational Mechanics (USACM) workshop “Data-Driven and Computational Modeling Across Scales” hosted by UCLA. The workshop was an excellent event with organization led by Prof. Amartya Banerjee of UCLA.
April 2023
Prof. Sills presents at Stony Brook University
Prof. Sills was honored to visit the Materials Science and Chemical Engineering department at Stony Brook University, and present at the departmental seminar.
March 2023
Congratulations to Yurui for poster award!
Yurui Zhang was awarded 2nd place in the Best Poster Competition at the Malcolm G. McLaren Symposium.
February 2023
Prof. Sills joins the Editorial Board of Materials Theory
Prof. Sills is privileged to be joining the Editorial Board for the open access journal Materials Theory, led by Editors-in-Chief Prof. Anter El-Azab and Michael Zaiser. Look here for more information on the journal.
January 2023
Welcome to Pranav Sunil, Yang Li, and Heather Schein!
Pranav joins the group as a Master’s student from MAE, Yang as a Master’s student from MSE, and Heather as an undergraduate from MSE. Welcome to all!
January 2023
Prof. Sills organizes and presents in a symposium at ICPDF 2023
Prof. Sills co-organized and presented an Invited Talk in a symposium on “Interfaces and Their Roles in Plasticity, Damage, and Fracture” at the 2023 International Conference on Plasticity, Damage, and Fracture.
December 2022
Congratulations to Rachel Hluchy!
She graduated with her BS in MSE.
November 2022
Keith wins Best Presentation award at 2022 GCURS
For his presentation on grain boundary fracture, Keith won an award for Best Presentation at the Gulf Coast Undergraduate Research Symposium (GCURS) at Rice University in Texas. Congratulations Keith!
October 2022
Group members present at MMM10 and SES2022
October was a busy month for the group, with group members giving 6 presentations at the 10th International Conference on Multiscale Materials Modeling (MMM10) in Baltimore and Prof. Sills giving an invited presentation at the Society of Engineering Sciences (SES2022) Annual Technical Meeting at Texas A&M.
July 2022
Welcome to David Gordon and Yiqun Xu as new PhD students in the group!
June 2022
Figure from journal article by Prof. Sills and Dr. Doug Medlin of Sandia National Labs is selected for the cover image of Microscopy and Microanalysis
May 2022
Prof. Sills is honored at 2021-2022 Chancellor-Provost’s Celebration of Faculty Excellence for his YIP award from ARO
May 2022
Congratulations to Tanvir Aman, Matthew Chase, Isaac Duan, Caleb Frey, David Gordon, Yuchen Li, and the rest of the class of 2022!
May 2022
Prof. Sills presents at UT San Antonio Mechanical Engineering departmental seminar
April 2022
Prof. Sills presents at the Malcom G. McLaren Symposium
Prof. Sills had the privilege of opening the 2022 MGM Symposium hosted by Rutgers MSE and the Ceramics Association of NJ where Prof. Martin Harmer was honored for his contributions to grain boundary complexions.
March 2022
Prof. Sills presents at Washington State University MSE departmental seminar
March 2022
Congratulations to Tanvir Aman, Caleb Frey, and Yuchen Li!
All three successfully defended their Master’s theses on interfacial fracture, fracture in ceramics, and line defect structures, respectively.
January 2022
Welcome to Rachel Hluchy and Keith Horne!
Rachel and Keith joined the group as undergraduate researchers and will be studying ductile particle toughening in ceramics and grain boundary fracture in metals.
December 2021
Congratulations to Landon Cordova!
Landon successfully defended his Master’s thesis titled Mechanism of Deformation in Graphene during Out-of-plane, High-rate Loading. Next month he starts a job with Plug Power, a hydrogen fuel cell manufacturer. You will be missed, Landon!
October 2021
Prof. Sills receives a United States Patent
Prof. Sills received United States Patent 11,148,392 as lead inventor for a new toughening technique in laminate composite materials along with co-inventors Dr. Tim Briggs, Dr. Brian Werner, and Dr. Stacy Nelson of Sandia National Laboratories.
August 2021
Prof. Sills awarded grant from the Department of Energy
Prof. Sills was awarded a 3-year grant from the Mechanical Behavior and Radiation Effects program under the Office of Science at the Department of Energy. The project will use theoretical calculations and molecular dynamics simulations to reveal the mechanisms underlying martensitic phase transformations in steels.
July 2021
Prof. Sills awarded NSF grant with Prof. Aziz Ezzat of ISE
Prof. Sills was awarded a 3-year grant from the Mechanics of Materials and Structures (MOMS) program at the National Science Foundation for a project with co-PI Prof. Aziz Ezzat of Industrial and Systems Engineering. The project will use molecular dynamics and machine learning to develop a predictive model for void nucleation during ductile fracture of metals.
July 2021
Congratulations to Qian Qian Zhao for passing her Ph.D. thesis proposal defense!
June 2021
Prof. Sills invited to contribute to Emerging Leaders 2021 Focus Issue of MSMSE
Prof. Sills will have the privilege of contributing a manuscript to the Emerging Leaders 2021 Focus Issue of the journal Modelling and Simulation in Materials Science and Engineering (MSMSE) as an invited author. He is proud to join the other emerging leaders selected by the journal’s editorial board.
May 2021
Welcome to David Gordon and Hiba Khan!
Dave and Hiba have joined the mMOD group as undergraduate researchers, studying grain boundary fracture of metals and developing neural-network-based surrogate models for materials design.
March 2021
Dr. Nipal Deka wins presentation slot at USACM workshop
Dr. Deka won a highly competitive presentation slot at the US Association for Computational Mechanics workshop “New Trends and Open Challenges in Computational Mechanics” where he will present on his work studying the behaviors of dislocation wall structures.
January 2021
Welcome to Isaac Duan and Matthew Chase!
Isaac and Matt have joined the mMOD group as Senior Lab students. Their research projects are focused on the anisotropy of dislocation junctions in FCC metals and fracture through heterogeneous ceramics.
December 2020
Prof. Sills earns ARO Young Investigator Program Award
Prof. Sills was awarded a Young Investigator Program (YIP) award from the Solid Mechanics Program at the Army Research Office. The award includes funding to support research efforts aimed at developing a dislocation network theory of plasticity.
September 2020
Welcome to Caleb Frey and Yurui Zhang!
The mMOD group welcomes Caleb Frey and Yurui Zhang as MSE Master’s students! Caleb’s research is focused on engineering of toughened ceramics, while Yurui is focused on optimization of graphene nanocomposites produced by Prof. Jennifer Lynch’s group.
August 2020
2D Materials Minisymposium for USNCCM16
Prof. Sills with be organizing, along with Prof. Teng Zhang of Syracuse University, a minisymposium for the 16th U.S. National Congress on Computational Mechanics titled “Mechanics and Microstructure of Two-dimensional Materials.” For more information, visit the minisymposium webpage. Abstract submission is expected to open soon!
June 2020
Prof. Sills joins the MAE Graduate Faculty
Prof. Sills is privileged to join the graduate faculty of the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, enabling him to advise and co-advise graduate students in MAE.
May 2020
Welcome to Dr. Nipal Deka!
The mMOD group welcomes Dr. Nipal Deka as a postdoctoral scholar. Dr. Deka will be using discrete dislocation dynamics and molecular dynamics to study dislocation patterning and crack initiation.
April 2020
DOE Computational Science Graduate Fellowship awarded to former group member Ethan Epperly
Ethan was awarded the prestigious U.S. Department of Energy Computational Science Graduate Fellowship and will be starting his PhD at CalTech in the Fall. Ethan was also the first author to a pair of recently published papers at the Journal of the Mechanics and Physics of Solids and Acta Materialia (see Publications page). Congratulations, Ethan!
November 2019
Abstract submission opens for symposium at MMM10 co-organized by Prof. Sills
Abstract submission has opened for the the 10th International Conference on Multiscale Materials Modeling to be held in Baltimore, MD from October 19-23, 2020 (postponed until November 2021). Please consider submission to the symposium Scale Bridging in Materials Science, which is being co-organized by Prof. Sills. See the conference website for additional info.
October 2019
Prof. Sills to serve as Co-editor of Special Issue of Materials Theory
Prof. Sills will be co-editing a Special Issue of Materials Theory with co-editors Thomas Hochrainer, Lasse Laurson, Stefanos Papanikolaou, and Giacomo Po. The issue is titled “Characterization of Dislocation Ensembles: Measures and Complexity.” For additional information, see the journal website.