Jack G. Zhou
Jack Zhou has been teaching and conducting basic and applied research in design and manufacturing, precision instrumentation and metrology for many years. His recent research is in additive manufacturing and 3-D printing, biomedical design and manufacturing, especially in tissue and surgical engineering. He invented several new rapid prototyping machines and technologies for microstructures, bone scaffolds and soft-tissue fabrications. He has developed a new research field Bio-Micro-Nano Design and Manufacturing for Tissue and Surgical Engineering. Jack Zhou published more than 130 journal and peer reviewed conference papers, and 10 patents, and organized various conferences/symposiums nationally and internationally. He has received more than 35 grants from government, industry and research institutions, and advised more than 38 Ph.D. & Master students and post doctors. He is a fellow of ASME, and received many awards from various societies, organizations, and institutes. He received his B.S. and M.S. degrees from Xi’an Jiaotong University, China and Ph.D. degree from NJIT, USA. Currently he teaches and does researches in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Mechanics at Drexel University, Philadelphia, USA.
Ahmad R. Najafi
Ahmad Raeisi Najafi is an Assistant Professor in the Mechanical Engineering and Mechanics Department and the director of the Multiscale Computational Mechanics and Biomechanics LAB (MCMBLAB). He received a B.S. degree in Mechanical Engineering (Solid Mechanics) from Shiraz University, Iran, in 1997, a M.S. and his first Ph.D. degrees in Biomedical Engineering (Biomechanics), both from the Amirkabir University of Technology in 1999 and 2006, respectively. In 2012, he joined Department of Mechanical Science and Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) for his second Ph.D., working on the design of advanced materials and received his degree in 2016. Najafi was a Postdoctoral Research Associate in the NIH Center for Macromolecular Modeling & Bioinformatics in the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology at UIUC from 2016 to 2017, working on computational modeling of membrane proteins structures. His interests are in Multiscale Computational Mechanics/Biomechanics/Biology, Design Optimization, Design of Biomimetic Materials, Mechanics of Biological Composites and Biomaterials, and Bone Fracture. He is a member of ASME and Biophysical Society.
Antonios Kontsos
Professor Kontsos primary research interest is in theoretical and applied mechanics with emphasis on the under-standing of the mechanical behavior of materials. To achieve this goal, I rely on defining micro-structure-properties-behavior relations using multiscale mechanics methods that involve theory, ex-periments and simulations. A fundamental goal of this type of research is the identification of dam-age and in particular the quantification of evolving material states as a function of applied loading, which can then be used for prognosis and remaining useful life estimations. In this context, I have been using nondestructive testing and evaluation methods in fatigue and fracture investigations across length and time scales in conjunction with signal processing and pattern recognition ap-proaches that could assist in both fundamental investigations of the mechanical behavior of struc-tural materials as well as in structural health monitoring applications. Such information is further used in investigations of both static and dynamic effects with emphasis on localization and nonlin-earity. In relation to these research efforts, I am teaching topics of solid mechanics in addition to computational methods in engineering.