Faculty

Niaz Abdolrahim joined the Department of Mechanical Engineering in July 2015 as assistant professor. She recently completed her postdoctoral appointment at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Department of Materials Science and Engineering, where she investigated the computational modeling of interface structure and interface-defect interactions in metallic films.

Abdolrahim is experienced in solid mechanics, continuum mechanics, plasticity, crystal plasticity, finite element methods (FEM), molecular dynamics simulations, Monte Carlo methods, nanoscale metallic composites, thin films, nanoporous materials, multiscale modeling of materials, computational solid mechanics, and mathematical modeling.

Abdolrahim received her PhD in mechanical engineering from Washington State University. Her research was on the multiscale modeling of dislocation mechanisms in nanoscale metals, with scales ranging from the atomistic, to crystal plasticity, to the continuum level via molecular dynamic simulations. Her work on computational materials science spans the nanomechanical properties of modern engineering materials where defects and interfaces control essentially the material macroscopic response.

Among other awards, in 2013 Abdolrahim received the James Clerk Maxwell Young Writers prize from the Philosophical Magazine and the Henry DeWitt Smith Scholarship from the Minerals, Metals & Materials Society. She has served as guest editor for the Journal of Nanomaterials and as discussion leader of a Gordon Research Conference in July 2014. She has published in more than 30 journals including Philosophical Magazine, Thin Solid Films, International Journal of Plasticity, and Computational Materials Science. She has participated in a variety of outreach activities such as a nanotechnology workshop for high school students.