Postdoctoral position in the theory of materials

Postdoctoral position in the theory of materials

Materials Department
University of California, Santa Barbara

A new post-doctoral position is open for conducting cross-disciplinary basic research in the theory of heterogeneous structural materials. Candidates are sought with strong background in statistics or statistical mechanics, probability theory, and mechanics. A Ph.D. in Mathematics, Physics, or Engineering might be appropriate.
The research will address aspects of behavior that are related to the stochastic microstructure or nanostructure of a material. Topics of interest include:

1. Mathematical descriptions of materials: characterizing the topology (connectivity) of different phases in a material’s internal structure; analyzing the statistics of variability in the geometry of elements of each phase; developing reconstruction algorithms for generating virtual specimens with the measured topology and stochastic character. This work will use computed tomography and other 3D image data as sources.

2. Physical and mechanical simulations of materials processing: develop cellular automata or analogous algorithms for simulating material fabrication processes such as vapor and liquid infiltration of a matrix into a stochastic reinforcement.

3. Statistical analysis of experiments and simulations. Virtual specimens generated in the above two tasks will be used as input for failure simulations conducted by colleagues. When those simulations are compared with experiment, part of the statistical analysis of the comparison will also be performed by the successful candidate. Analysis will include formulating and solving inverse problems.

The successful candidate will work at the University of California, Santa Barbara, within the National Hypersonic Science Center – Materials and Structures, a multi-university research partnership funded jointly by AFOSR and NASA and led by Teledyne Scientific (TSC). Please visit http://nhscms.org/. The position will be supervised by Professors Robert McMeeking and Frank Zok. Collaboration with other groups within the NHSC, including Brian Cox and Dave Marshall at TSC, will be encouraged.
A preferred start date is early in 2012. Candidates are requested to apply to Professor Zok (zok@engineering.ucsb.edu), with cc to Brian Cox (bcox@teledyne.com) before November 30, 2011.