News & Updates
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SES 2025: Two talks on Strain-Gradient Effects and Polarization in Soft Materials
Presented two talks at the Society of Engineering Science (SES) 2025 Conference in Atlanta, GA:
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USNCCM18 conference attandence
Presented two talks at the 18th U.S. National Congress on Computational Mechanics (USNCCM18) in Chicago, IL, July 2025.
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EMI 2025: Talk on size effects in soft materials
Gave a talk on “Size-Dependent Instabilities in Highly Deformable Strain-Gradient Materials” at EMI 2025 in Anaheim, CA. Credit goes to the PhD student Jun for his work on this topic.
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Berkin is elected as the new editor of the newsletter for the ASME technical committee of Mechanics of Soft Materials
Berkin has been elected as the new editor of the ASME (Applied Mechanics Division) Technical Committee on Mechanics of Soft Materials. According to the policy, he will continue to serve the committee as secretary, then as vice chair, and finally as chair over the next four years.
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We recieved the NSF CAREER Award!
National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER Award on CAREER: Multiscale Mechanics of Highly Deformable Strain-Gradient Electric Generators
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Ashkan Received the Kolodzey Travel Award
Ashkan received the Kolodzey Travel Award from the CAEE department at UT Austin, which allowed him to attend the MPM Workshop in Berkeley, CA, where he presented his research on Mechanics of Polymeric Porous Membranes using a Stabilized Extended B-Spline Material Point Method.
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Ashkan Ali Madadi Presents at the 15th Annual MPM Workshop
Ashkan attended the 15th Annual MPM Workshop at the University of California, Berkeley, held from September 5-6, 2024. He gave a presentation titled Mechanics of Porous Polymeric Membranes Using Stabilized Extended B-spline Material Point Method. Well done, Ashkan!
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Congratulations to Our Lab's Ph.D. Students on Receiving the George J. Heuer, Jr. Ph.D. Endowed Fellowship
Three of our lab’s Ph.D. students—Ashkan Ali Madadi, Ekim Ekiz, and Jun Wang—have been awarded the George J. Heuer, Jr. Ph.D. Endowed Fellowship from the Cockrell School of Engineering for the 2024-2025 academic year. This fellowship recognizes and supports their outstanding research and contributions in their fields.
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Ashkan Ali Madadi Presents at the Engineering Mechanics Institute Conference 2024
Ashkan Ali Madadi, a Ph.D. student in our lab, presented his research titled “Stabilized Extended B-Spline Material Point Method for Multi-Field Soft Materials with Nitsche Imposition of Boundary Conditions” at the Engineering Mechanics Institute Conference (EMI 2024). The conference was held in Chicago from May 28 to 31. Congratulations to...
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Ashkan Ali Madadi and Ekim Ekiz Present Collaborative Research at the Fracture of Soft Materials Symposium
Ashkan Ali Madadi and Ekim Ekiz, Ph.D. students in our lab, presented their collaborative research titled “Modeling Nearly Incompressible Behavior in Soft Solids Using the Material Point Method” at the Fracture of Soft Materials Symposium, held in Austin from May 12 to 16, 2024. Their work, co-authored with Richard Noh,...
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Prof. Berkin Receives CAEE's 2024 Faculty Teaching Award
Prof. Berkin is the 2024 recipient of CAEE’s Faculty Teaching Award! He was nominated by CAEE students, and selected by a committee of previous award recipients. Congratulations to Prof. Berkin!
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Ashkan Ali Madadi Presents at the American Physical Society March Meeting 2024
Ashkan Ali Madadi, a Ph.D. student in our lab, presented his research titled “Diffusion-Induced Swelling of Shape Morphing Hydrogels” at the American Physical Society (APS) March Meeting 2024. The conference took place in Minneapolis from March 3 to 8. Congratulations to Ashkan!
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End-of-Year Gathering 2023!
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Our group attends the 2023 SES Conference in Minneapolis
Minneapolis, October 8-11, 2023
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CAEE Department Naming Event
Fariborz Maseeh Department of Civil, Architectural, and Environmental Engineering
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Ashkan Ali Madadi and Dr. Berkin Dortdivanlioglu attended the 17th USNCCM conference
Ashkan Madadi and Dr. Berkin Dortdivanlioglu presented their research at the 17th U.S. National Congress on Computational Mechanics (USNCCM) held in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
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Ashkan Ali Madadi and Dr. Berkin Dortdivanlioglu attended the EMI2023 conference
Ashkan and Dr. Dortdivanlioglu attended the Engineering Mechanics Institute Conference (EMI) held in Atlanta, Georgia in June 2023. Ashkan presented his work on “Bspline Material Point Method for Strongly Coupled Poroelastic Materials,” and Dr. Dortdivanlioglu talked about modeling adhesive and capillary forces in soft materials.
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Richard Noh Awarded Prestigious Dr. Marco Antonio Zuniga Izaguirre Endowed Scholarship
Richard Noh has been selected as the recipient of the prestigious Dr. Marco Antonio Zuniga Izaguirre Endowed Scholarship in Engineering and Physics.
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Richard Noh has been awarded the 2023 Ivo & Renata Babuska Scholarship in CSE
Richard Noh has been awarded the 2023 Ivo & Renata Babuska Scholarship in Computational Science and Engineering. This award was established to recognize and support the studies of exceptional senior-level undergraduate students at the university who are undertaking research at the Oden Institute for Computational Engineering and Sciences.
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Derya won the best presentation in the 4th CAEE Graduate Symposium
Derya received the first-place prize for best presentation in the 4th CAEE Graduate Symposium held at UT Austin on March 24, with her presentation on modeling the adhesive interfaces between soft materials.
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Derya presented her work at the APS March Meeting 2023
Derya presented her work on the numerical modeling of the elasto-adhesive behavior of soft materials at the APS March Meeting 2023 in Las Vegas. Derya attended the meeting with funds from the DSOFT Future Investigator Conference Travel Award and the UT Professional Development Award.
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Animesh won the best poster award at IMECE 2022!
Congratulations Animesh for winning the BEST poster award in Computing in Applied Mechanics! (IMECE2022)
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Ashkan presented his work in the MPM workshop at UT Austin
Ashkan gave a talk titled “A subdivision-stabilized B-spline material point method for nonlinear nearly incompressible solids” in the Material Point Method Workshop . The workshop was held at UT Austin from 29th to 30th September 2022. Kudos to Ashkan for this fantastic talk!
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Haythornthwaite Foundation Student Travel Award to Ashkan!
Ashkan received Haythornthwaite Foundation Student Travel Award to attend IMECE 2022 conference and present in the Track: Mechanics of Solids, Structures and Fluids.
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Presented our research at the Biophysics Seminar at UT Austin
We presented our research on the Computationally Driven Design of Tissue- Inspired Multifunctional Materials in the Biophysics seminar at UT Austin. More info!
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Paper on modeling curvature-resisting material surfaces accepted @CMAME
Paper titled “Modeling curvature-resisting material surfaces with isogeometric analysis” is accepted @CMAME. Huge congratulations to Animesh on this substantial work!
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Ashkan receives travel award to SES2022
Ashkan received a travel award to present his research on “A Subdivision- stabilized B-spline Material Point Method for Nonlinear Nearly Incompressible Solids” at SES2022. Congrats, Ashkan!
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Best poster award. Congrats, Animesh!
Animesh received the best poster award in the 2022 Graduate Symposium at UT Austin where he presented his recent research on “modeling curvature- resisting material surfaces.”
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Poster awards to undergraduate researcher, Nate!
Nathaniel T Markusic received the third best poster award in the 2022 Graduate Symposium at UT Austin and an Honorable Mention for his poster presentation and design at the Longhorn Undergraduate Research Week.
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Excellence in Research award to Animesh!
Animesh received the Excellence in Research award for his presentation on Modeling Energetic Surfaces with Curvature-Resistance in Soft Solids and Nanostructures at the UT GAIN symposium.
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Welcome, Ashkan!
Ashkan joins our group as a Ph.D. student in Fall 2021 after receiving his master’s degree at Sharif University of Technology, Iran. Welcome, Ashkan!
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Welcome, Animesh!
Animesh joins our group as an M.S. student in Fall 2020 after receiving his B.S. degree at the Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar. Welcome, Animesh!
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Welcome to the Lab!
We develop advanced computational modeling and physics-based simulation techniques for i) enhancing our understanding of dynamic shape, topology, and functional changes in soft materials in nature, ii) elucidating the complete interplay between multi-physics materials and their physical/(bio)chemical stimuli, and iii) capturing lower-dimensional energetics linked to surfaces, interfaces, and fibers across...