I'm Xuanhe Zhao, a first year PhD student working in Suo's Group, at Harvard University. Prior to coming to Harvard, I obtained a Master Degree in Materials Engineering from University of British Columbia.

The courses I have taken in solid mechanics include Elasticity taught by Zhigang, Plasticity taught by Prof. J. Vlassak, and Solid Structure and Defect taught by Prof. F. Spaepen. Currently, I'm also in the class of Advanced Elasticity given by Zhigang.

On the other hand, I took no official courses in either fracture mechanics or thin film materials. This is my weakness in this course, and also one of the reasons that I'm taking it. The other reason is that I expect to apply what I learn in this course into my research. I'm currently studying on the failure of dielectric elastomer films. For more details in this field, you may refer to http://ndeaa.jpl.nasa.gov/nasa-nde/lommas/eap/ .