Wenbin Yu
Purdue University
General Conference Chair
Dr. Wenbin Yu is a Professor in the School of Aeronautics and Astronautics at Purdue University. He received his PhD in aerospace engineering from Georgia Tech and MS in engineering mechanics from Tsinghua University. He serves as the Director for Composites Design and Manufacturing HUB (cdmHUB.org) and the CTO for AnalySwift LLC (analyswift.com). His expertise is in micromechanics and structural mechanics with applications to anisotropic, heterogeneous materials. He has developed seven computer codes which are being used by thousands of researchers and engineers in government labs, universities, research institutes and companies. He is an ASME Fellow and AIAA Associate Fellow. He served as the chair for ASME Structures and Materials Technical Committee and AIAA Materials Technical Committee. He currently serves as the chair for ASME Aerospace Division. He serves on the editorial boards of six international journals and the ASME IMECE Congress Steering Committee.
Olesya Zhupanska
University of Arizona
Technical Program Chair
Dr. Zhupanska is a Professor in the Department of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering at the University of Arizona. She received her Ph.D. in Mechanics of Solids and Applied Mathematics from Kiev University (Kiev, Ukraine) in 2000. Dr. Zhupanska's research interests are in the general area of mechanics of solids with a particular emphasis on mechanics of composites, multiphysics problems related to composites, and contact mechanics. Her work has been recognized by a number of awards including the DARPA Young Faculty Award, ASME/Boeing Award, and National Research Council (NRC) Senior Research Associateship Award. She is Fellow of ASME and Associate Fellow of AIAA
Erasmo Carrera
Politecnico di Torino
Vice Technical Chair
Dr Erasmo Carrera is Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics at Politecnico di Torino. He acts as President of the Italian Association of Aeronautics and Astronautics, A.I.D.A.A and member of Accademia delle Scienze di Torino. He has been visiting professor at the University of Stuttgart, Virginia Tech, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, Tambov University, Supmeca and Ensam.
Dr Carrera has been responsible for various research contracts granted by public and private national and international institutions, including the European Community, European Space Agency, Thales Alenia Space and Embraer. He is founder and Editor-in-Chief of Advances in Aircraft and Spacecraft Science, Editor-in-Chief of Mechanics of Advanced Materials Structures and Section Editor of Journal and Sound and Vibration.
He has introduced the Unified Formulation, or CUF (Carrera Unifed Formulation), as a tool to establish a new framework in which to develop theories of beams, plates and shells for metallic and composite multilayered structures. He has been author and co-author of about 800 papers on the above topics. Carrera has been recipient of various 'best paper award' and of the 'JN Reddy Medal'. Professor Carrera has been Highly Cited Researchers (Top 100 Scientist) by Thompson Reuters in the two Sections: Engineering and Materials. He has been confirmed HiCI in 2015 in the Section Engineering. The only aerospace Engineering worldwide.
Due to his scientific outcoming professor Carrera has been recently awarded by the President of Italian Republic, as 'Honoray Commendator'.
Erkan Oterkus
University of Strathclyde, Glasgow
Track Chair: Structures
Prof Erkan Oterkus is a professor at University of Strathclyde, Glasgow. He is also the director of PeriDynamics Research Centre (PDRC) and Ocean Energy Research Unit (OERU). He received his PhD from University of Arizona, USA and was a researcher at NASA Langley Research Center, USA before joining University of Strathclyde. He is currently serving as the ASME Europe Region Leader. His research is mainly focused on computational mechanics of materials and structures by using some of the state-of-the-art techniques including peridynamics and inverse finite element method. He is the co-author of numerous publications including the first of book on peridynamics, journal and conference papers. Prof Oterkus is the Editor-in-Chief of Sustainable Marine Structures (NASS) journal. He is an associate editor of Journal of Peridynamics and Nonlocal Modeling (Springer), ASME Journal of Engineering Materials and Technology, and Frontiers in Materials (Frontiers).
Dr. Xin-Lin Gao
Southern Methodist University
Vice Track Chair: Structures
Dr. Xin-Lin Gao is currently a professor of mechanical engineering at Southern Methodist University (SMU) located in Dallas, Texas. He also held tenured or tenure-track faculty positions at University of Texas at Dallas for 3 years, Texas A&M University for 7 years, and Michigan Tech for 4 years. In addition, he worked at the Air Force Institute of Technology and the Air Force Research Lab for about 2.5 years and was a visiting professor at University of Paris-East.
He has conducted research in a variety of areas in mechanics and materials and is an author/co-author of 156 published/accepted journal papers, three book chapters, 149 conference publications, and 5 editorials. His work has been funded by NSF, Army, AFOSR, AFRL, DOE, and industries.
He has been a reviewer for 129 technical journals, 14 funding organizations, and 10 publishers and has organized 32 symposia at major technical conferences. He currently serves as an associate editor for Mechanics of Materials, CMES-Computer Modeling in Engineering & Sciences, and Journal of Micromechanics and Molecular Physics. He is also an editorial board member of Acta Mechanica, Mathematics and Mechanics of Solids, Scientific Reports, and seven other journals. He is a past chair of the ASME Aerospace Division and a past chair of the Structures and Materials Technical Committee of ASME. He was elected an ASME Fellow in December 2010 and was listed in World’s Top 2% Scientists in the subject field of “Mechanical Engineering & Transports” in Oct. 2020.
Weihua Su
University of Alabama
Track Chair: Structural Dynamics
Dr. Weihua Su is currently an Associate Professor (with tenure) of the Department of Aerospace Engineering and Mechanics at the University of Alabama. He earned his B.S. (2000) and M.S. (2002) degrees in Aerospace Engineering from Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics (BUAA), China, and his Ph.D. (2008) degree in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Michigan. Dr. Su’s general research interests include aeroelasticity, flight dynamics, and control of flexible flight vehicles. Recently, he has focused on the nonlinear aeroelasticity and control synthesis of flexible mission-adaptive aircraft with adaptive multifunctional structures and sensing technologies. He is also engaged in the dynamics and control of urban air mobility vehicles. His work has been recognized by the ASME/Boeing Structures and Materials Award (2011) and NASA Group Achievement Award (2018). Dr. Su was awarded the Air Force Summer Faculty Fellowships in 2014 and 2015, respectively. He was also awarded the NASA Ames Research Center’s Summer Faculty Fellowship in 2014. Dr. Su’s research has been funded by NASA Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate (ARMD), NASA Ames Research Center, NASA Kennedy Space Center, and aerospace and automotive industries. Dr. Su is a senior member of AIAA and an elected member of the AIAA Structural Dynamics Technical Committee. He is also an elected member of the ASME Aerospace Division Structures and Materials Technical Committee which he chaired from 2020 to 2022.
Zahra Sotoudeh
Cal Poly Pomona
Vice Track Chair: Structural Dynamics
Dr. Zahra Sotoudeh is an associate professor of Aerospace Engineering at Cal Poly Pomona. Zahra is an American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) associate fellow.
She has a Ph.D. and MSc. from Georgia Tech, specializing in computational nonlinear aeroelasticity. Zahra's research interests are developing computational methods for studying the vibrational behavior of structures in a wide range of frequencies. Zahra has developed programs and techniques using the Finite Element Method (FEM) and Statistical Energy Analysis (SEA) to study high-aspect-ratio flying wings and helicopter rotor blades structural dynamics and energy harvesting from smart materials. Zahra has published two books and several journal articles. She is a frequent presenter at the American Institute of Aeronautics, Astronautics, and the American Society of Mechanical Engineering conferences. Zahra's leadership positions include the structural dynamics technical discipline chair for the AIAA SciTech Forum 2017, the student competition chair for the IMECE 2018, and the AIAA SciTech Forum 2020. Zahra was the chair of the American Society of Mechanical Engineering Aerospace Structure Technical Committee from 2018 to 2020. She is currently the AIAA Structural Dynamics Technical Committee secretary.
Zahra is enthusiastic about teaching and her students at Cal Poly Pomona. She has pioneered implementing new pedagogies like active learning techniques and flipped classrooms at the aerospace engineering department. She is the university lead of the Champion for Accessibility and Inclusivity (CHAI) program. In recognition of her work at Cal Poly Pomona, she has been presented with the teacher-scholar award several times.
Evan Pineda
NASA Glenn Research Center
Track Chair: Materials
Dr. Pineda is an Aerospace Research Engineer in the Multiscale and Multiphysics Modeling Branch, Materials and Structures Division at the NASA Glenn Research Center (GRC). Within NASA GRC’s recognized Multiscale Analysis Center of Excellence (MACE), his research is focused on multiscale modeling of advanced composite and heterogeneous materials for use in structural applications. He was a developer for the ImMAC suite of multiscale analysis tools which include the MAC/GMC and FEAMAC software packages. In addition he formulated and developed the Enhanced Schapery Theory (EST) progressive damage and failure analysis tool. He is currently the lead developer and designer of a new state-of-the art multiscale platform: NASA multiscale analysis tool (NASMAT) as part of NASA’s Transformational Tools and Technologies (TTT) program. For NASA’s Space Launch System (ALA) program, focused on development of a new class of heavy lift launch vehicles for low earth orbit exploration, missions to the moon, Mars and beyond, Dr. Pineda supports the damage tolerance and fracture control efforts for the Universal Stage Adapter (USA) and Payload Fairing (PLF). Dr Pineda’s other research interests include Integrated Computational Materials Engineering (ICME), nano-enhanced composites, ceramic matrix composites, lightning strike protection, composite processing, and additive manufacturing. Dr. Pineda has authored, or co-authored, over 150 technical publications, including 30 journal papers, and one book chapter. Dr. Pineda was recently awarded the Presidential Award for Early Career Scientists and Engineers (PECASE).
Yongming Liu
Arizona State University
Vice Track Chair: Materials
Yongming Liu is a professor of aerospace and mechanical engineering with the School for Engineering of Matter, Transport and Energy at Arizona State University. He heads the Prognostic Analysis and Reliability Assessment Laboratory (PARA). He joined ASU in 2012.
His research interests range from fatigue and fracture of engineering materials and structures, probabilistic computational mechanics, risk assessment and management to multi-physics damage modeling and structural durability, multi-scale uncertainty quantification and propagation, imaging-based experimental testing, diagnostics and prognostics.