Professor K.T. Ramesh, Director
K.T. Ramesh is the Alonzo G. Decker Jr. Professor of Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University. His research interests are in high strain rate behavior and dynamic failure of materials, nanostructured materials, the dynamics of human tissues and planetary scale impact problems. Prof. Ramesh received his doctorate from Brown University in 1987. After a short stint as a postdoctoral fellow at the University of California, San Diego, he joined the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Johns Hopkins in 1988, becoming Department Chair from 1999-2002, Director of the Center for Advanced Metallic and Ceramic Systems (CAMCS) in 2001 and Director of the Hopkins Extreme Materials Institute (HEMI) in 2012. He has published one book (Nanomaterials: Mechanics and Mechanisms; Springer) and threatens to write another. He is an avid amateur astronomer.
Professor Lori Graham-Brady, Associate Director
Lori Graham-Brady is Department Chair and a professor in the Civil Engineering Departments at Johns Hopkins University, with a secondary appointment in Mechanical Engineering. Her research interests are in computational stochastic mechanics, multiscale modeling of materials with random microstructure and the mechanics of failure under high-rate loading. Prof. Graham-Brady received her doctorate from Princeton University in 1996. After spending four years as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Civil Engineering at the University of Virginia, she joined Johns Hopkins University in 2000. She is Director of an NSF-funded IGERT training program with the theme of Modeling Complex Systems. She has received a number of awards, including the Presidential Early Career Awards for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE), the Walter L. Huber Civil Engineering Research Prize, and the William H. Huggins Award for Excellence in Teaching. She enjoys oil painting and proudly displays her work in the Brady family living room.
Dr. Victor Nakano, Exectutive Program Director
Victor M. Nakano is the Executive Program Director of the Hopkins Extreme Materials Institute and an Associate Research Scientist in the Whiting School of Engineering. He received his doctorate in civil engineering from Purdue University in 2008, and earned master of science degree from Stanford University in 2000. Dr. Nakano served 22 years as a US Army officer leading research and acquisition programs for the Joint Program Executive Office for Chemical and Biological Defense, Edgewood Chemical Biological Center, and the US Army Research, Development and Engineering Command. He was in the first cadre selected for the Uniformed Army Scientist and Engineer PhD Program, served as an Assistant Professor of civil engineering at the United States Military Academy at West Point, and is a registered Professional Engineer in the state of Missouri.
Consortium Management Committee (CMC)
Dr. John Beatty, Cooperative Agreement Manager
Dr. John H. Beatty received his bachelor’s degree in Mechanics from the Johns Hopkins University in 1984 and his PhD in Materials Science from the University of Virginia in 1988. Since receiving his doctorate, Dr. Beatty has continually served the US Army, both as a commissioned officer and a civilian. Currently, he works for the Weapons and Materials Research Directorate of the US Army Research Laboratory at Aberdeen Proving Ground, where he manages basic research in protection materials for the Materials and Manufacturing Science Division. His research for the Army has included studies on metallic armor, adiabatic shear, and corrosion/erosion problems of US Army Materiel. He currently serves as the Cooperative Agreement Manager for the Materials in Extreme Dynamic Environments Collaborative Research Alliance a central element of ARL’s Enterprise for Multiscale Research in Materials.
Professor Kaushik Bhattacharya
Kaushik Bhattacharya is the Howell N. Tyson Sr. Professor of Mechanics and Materials Science at the California Institute of Technology, and he also serves as one of Caltech’s two Vice Provosts. He studies the mechanical behavior of solids, and specifically uses theory to guide the development of new materials at the California Institute of Technology. Current research concerns three broad areas: (i) Active materials such as shape-memory alloys, ferroelectrics and liquid crystal elastomers, (ii) Heterogeneous materials and designing unprecedented properties by exploiting heterogeneities, (iii) Coarse-grained density functional theory to understand defects in solids.
Professor John W. Gillespie, Jr.
John Gillespie Jr. is the Donald C. Phillips Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Delaware, and he also holds joint appointments in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering and Department of Mechanical Engineering. Gillespie has served the University of Delaware Center for Composite Materials (UD-CCM) in several roles since 1981, achieving the position of Director in 1996. Dr. Gillespie has a proven track record of conducting high quality basic and applied research in collaboration with colleagues from academia, government and industry. He has authored/co-authored more than 750 publications in composites science and technology including 13 book/book chapters, 15 patents, and more than 250 refereed journal papers, 400 proceeding papers and more than 100 technical reports. Dr. Gillespie is the Principal Investigator of two Army Research Laboratory (ARL) Centers of Excellence, one in multifunctional composite materials and the other in mechanics and performance of composites. Both of these Centers were renewed in 2006 – 2014. He is also co-principal investigator for a third Center of Excellence focused on advanced materials and intelligent processing funded by the Office of Naval Research (ONR) from 1997 to 2014. In addition, Dr. Gillespie is co- principal investigator for a fourth Center of Excellence, hosted by Wichita State University. Funded by the Federal Aviation Association, the FAA center focuses on advanced composite materials for commercial aircraft. In 2012, ARL established a Cooperative Research Alliance with Hopkins, Rutgers and CalTech and UD on Materials under Extreme Dynamic Environments of which Dr. Gillespie is a member of the core management team and UDʼs PI.
Professor Richard Haber
Richard Haber is the Director of the Ceramic, Composite and Optical Materials Center (CCOCM) and NSF Industry/University Cooperative Research Center. He has served as Director since 2004. He is a Professor Material Science and Engineering at Rutgers University. His research interests include minerals processing, synthesis of ceramic powders, processing of ceramic, characterization and non-destructive evaluation of materials. Prof. Haber received his BS, MS and PhD(in 1984) from Rutgers. He joined the Department of Ceramic Engineering at Rutgers in 1984. He has published over 200 papers in a wide range of materials based topics.
Collaborative Materials Research Group (CMRG) Co-Leads
Ceramics CMRG
Consortium Lead: Prof. Richard Haber (Rutgers)
ARL Lead: Dr. Jerry LaSalvia
Composites CMRG
Consortium Lead: Prof. John Gillespie, Jr. (Univ. of Delaware)
ARL Lead: Dr. Daniel O’Brien
Metals CMRG
Consortium Lead: Prof. Timothy P. Weihs (JHU)
ARL Lead: Dr. Laszlo Kecskes
Polymers CMRG
Consortium Lead: Prof. Giuseppe Palmese (Drexel)
ARL Lead: Dr. James Snyder
