I received my bachelor’s degrees in mechanical engineering and business from the University of Pennsylvania in 1994. I then went on to earn my MS (1997) and PhD (1999) degrees in mechanical engineering from the University of California at Santa Barbara. After spending a little over a year at Harvard University as a post-doc, I then went to Rice University where I was a professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science from 2000-2006. I have been a professor in the Department of Aerospace Engineering and Engineering Mechanics at UT Austin since January of 2007.
My research focuses on continuum modeling and numerical simulation of the mechanical, electrical, magnetic and thermal behavior of materials. I have done research on active/smart materials such as ferroelectrics, shape memory alloys, and ferromagnetic shape memory alloys, and on phase-field modeling of domain structure evolution, boiling, and fracture. I also have a broad range of interests in the mechanics of materials, including fracture mechanics, plasticity, micromechanics, composites, and finite element methods.