During my research career I have observed “new” material systems develop and offer promise of wondrous device performance improvements over the current state of the art. Many of these promises have been kept, resulting in numerous new devices that could never have been dreamed of just a few short years ago. Other promises have not been fulfilled, due, in part, to a lack of understanding of the key limitations of these new material systems. Regardless of the material in question, one fact remains true: Without a detailed understanding of the electrical and optical interaction of electronic and photonic “particles” with the material and defect environment around them, novel device development is clearly impeded. It is not just a silicon world! Modern electronic/optoelectronic device designs (even silicon based devices) utilize many diverse materials, including mature dielectrics such as silicon dioxide/nitrides/oxynitrides, immature ferroelectric oxides, silicides, metal alloys, and new semiconductor compounds. Key to the continued progress of electronic devices is the continued development of a detailed understanding of the interaction of these materials and the defects and limitations inherent to each material system. It is my commitment to insure that new devices are continuously produced based on complex mixed family material systems.

Professor Yavari joined the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology in January 2005. He received his B.S. in Civil Engineering from Sharif University of Technology, Tehran, Iran in 1997. He continued his studies at The George Washington University where he obtained an M.S. in Mechanical Engineering in 2000. He then moved to Pasadena, CA and obtained his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering (Applied Mechanics option with minor in Mathematics) from the California Institute of Technology in 2005. Professor Yavari is a Fellow of the Society of Engineering Science and a member of the American Academy of Mechanics.

Professor Yavari's interests are in developing systematic theories of discrete mechanics for crystalline solids with defects. Defects play a crucial role in determining the properties of materials. The development of atomistic methods including density functional theory, bond-order potentials and embedded atom potentials has enabled a detailed study of such defects. However, much of the work is numerical and often with ad hoc boundary/far-field conditions. Specifically, a systematic method for studying these discrete yet non-local problems is lacking. Design in small scales requires solving inverse problems and this is not possible with purely numerical techniques. From a mechanics point of view, defective crystals are modeled as discrete boundary-value problems. The challenging issues are extending the existing techniques from solid state physics for non-periodic systems, new developments in the theory of vector-valued partial difference equations, existence and uniqueness of solutions of discrete boundary-value problems and their symmetries, etc. The other efforts in this direction are understanding the geometric structure of discrete mechanics and its link with similar attempts in the physics and computational mechanics literatures and investigating the rigorous continuum limits of defective crystals

Yang Wang joined Georgia Tech faculty in 2007. With a B.E. and an M.S. degree in civil engineering awarded by Tsinghua University in Beijing, China, he received a Ph.D. in civil engineering at Stanford University in 2007, as well as an M.S. in electrical engineering. Wang’s research interests include structural health monitoring and damage detection, decentralized structural control, wireless and mobile sensors, and structural dynamics. He received an NSF Early Faculty Career Development (CAREER) Award in 2012 and a Young Investigator Award from the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR) in 2013. Wang is the author and coauthor of over 100 journal and conference papers, and currently serves as an associate editor for the ASCE (American Society of Civil Engineers) Journal of Bridge Engineering.

Lauren Stewart joined the Georgia Institute of Technology, Civil & Environmental Engineering faculty as an assistant professor in August 2013. She was promoted to Associate Professor, with tenure in 2019. She received her B.S. in Structural Engineering from the University of California, San Diego in 2004 and her Ph.D. in Structural Engineering also from the University of California, San Diego in 2010. She is a National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate Fellow, an US Air Force Summer Faculty Fellow, and a 2017 Rising Star in Structural Engineering. Prior to coming to Georgia Tech, Stewart was a Post Doctoral Scholar at the University of California, San Diego from 2010 to 2013. From 2006 to 2013, she worked a Senior Blast Engineer at Karagozian & Case Structural Engineers in California where she holds a PE license.

Stewart’s research is focused on experimental methods for characterized the response of structures to natural and manmade hazards. She has been involved with many blast, shock, impact and seismic experimental and computational programs. These including blast testing of steel structural columns, blast testing of steel stud wall systems, material testing for ultra high performance concrete for impulsive loads and seismic testing for Los Alamos National Laboratories. She has also conducted advanced finite element analysis for the World Trade Center 7 Collapse, AFRL Munitions Directorate small munitions program and programs supported by the Technical Support Working Group. Her design experience includes blast analysis for the Veterans Affairs and consulting projects for various companies.

Muhanna is an associate professor in the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology. He obtained his B.S. in Civil Engineering from the University of Damascus in 1972, and his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in the area of Solid and Structural Mechanics in 1976 and 1979, respectively from the Higher Institute for Structure and Architecture, Sofia, Bulgaria. He joined the faculty at the University of Damascus, Syria in 1980, and has also served on the faculty at Case Western Reserve University, Ohio and the University of Maryland (1991-2000). Muhanna has won a number of international prizes, among them: the Aga Khan Award for Architecture, one of the most prestigious international architectural awards, for the his masonry shell system without steel reinforcement (1992); the Golden Prize of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), for the best displayed patent at the International Fair of Damascus (1988); and the Special Prize of the United Nations HABITAT (1989). Muhanna's research activity is in the general area of solid and structural mechanics that includes uncertainty modeling, structural reliability, computational reliability, shell theory, and optimization of masonry building materials in structural systems. This research activity has culminated in the development of the new methods for reliable engineering computing, establishment of the Center for Reliable Engineering Computing (REC), and hosting the bi-annual international NSF sponsored workshop on Reliable Engineering Computing since 2004.