>> 11/22/11: Prof. Zavattieri's  article on the modeling of nacre ("On the mechanics of mother-of-pearl: A key feature in the material herarchical structure", JMPS, 55(2),2007), in collaboration with Northwestern University has been inducted as one of the top 10 most cited Journal of the Mechanics and Physics of Solids articles during the last 5 years. [Link]

>> 09/30/11: Congratulations to Federico Antico who is one of the recipients of the 2011 William and Mary Goetz Graduate Scholarship in Civil Engineering.

>> 09/20/11: Prof. Zavattieri received an NSF award to travel to the  12th Pan American Congress of Applied Mechanics (PACAM XII).

>> 09/01/11: Prof. Zavattieri is co-organizing the 2nd International Symposium on the Mechanics of Biological Systems and Materials  as part of the SEM XII International Congress & Exposition on Experimental and Applied Mechanics to be held in Costa Mesa, CA, in  June 11-14, 2012 [Link][PDF]

>> 08/01/11: Our group received funding from NSF to study cementitious-based nanocomposites with cellulose nanocrystals. In this project we will develop multiscale strategies to study the fundamental behavior of cellulose nanocrystals from atomic scale to the continuum scale. [Link] 

>> 06/10/11: Congratulations to Federico Antico, Fernando Cordisco and Isaias Gallana for participating in the development of scientific instruments for the satellite Aquarius/SAC-D. The Aquarius/SAC-D spacecraft sucessfully launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California Friday (6/10/11) morning, kicking off a critical mission to help better understand climate change. [Link 1] [Link 2]

>> 05/24/11: Prof. Zavattieri  is co-organizing the symposium "Multiscale modeling and simulation of complex materials and systems", for the 12th Pan American Congress of Applied Mechanics (PACAM XII), to be held in Port of Spain, Trinidad, Jan 2-6, 2012. [Link]

>> 05/01/11: Prof. Zavattieri was invited to give a plenary talk at the VIII Colombian Congress on Numerical Methods, to be held in Medellin, Colombia, Aug. 10-12, 2011. [Link]

>> 03/14/11: Prof. Zavattieri is co-organizing the symposium  “Mechanics of Materials across Multiple Length Scales” , for the 48th Annual Technical Meeting of Society of Engineering Sciences, Evanston, IL, Oct. 12-14, 2011. [Link]

>> 02/01/11: Press releases:
- LiveScience article features Prof. Zavattieri's work on biomimetic materials "Seashells Get Their Strength from Interlocking 'Bricks'" [Link]
- "Seashells so tough they'll kick sand in your face [Link]
- "Synthetic materials that behave like mollusk shells [Purdue News] [Link 1] [Link 2] [Link 3] [Link 4]
- "Scientists Design Artificial Nanocomposites Using Nacre's Toughening Mechanism" [Link]
- "Sólo Ciencia: Los Secretos del Nacar" [Link]

>>  02/01/11: Prof. Zavattieri's paper on biomimetic composite materials "Tablet-Level Origin of Toughening in Abalone Shells and Translation to Synthetic Composite Materials" has been published in Nature Communications. [Link]

>> 12/22/10: New course for Spring 2011. CE 597: "Nonlinear Fracture Mechanics" [Course Web site]  

>> 08/06/10: Congratulations to Carlos Gomez for receiving the Award of Excellence/Top Research Talk  for his work "Particle Dynamics Model for Biomimetic Materials" presented at the 2010 SURF Research Symposium at Purdue University. [Link]

>> 06/30/10: Prof. Zavattieri has been awarded a 2010 PRF International Travel Grant for his participation in the South American Congress on Computational Mechanics MECOM2010-CILAMCE2010. 

>> 04/15/10: Prof. Zavattieri is organizing a mini-symposium entitled: “Modeling of materials for coupled problems” the South American Congress on Computational Mechanics (MECOM2010-CILAMCE2010), Buenos Aires, Argentina, November 15-18, 2010. 

>> 03/21/10: Prof. Zavattieri and collaborators from General Motors Research and Development and the University of Michigan have received the "Engineering Fracture mechanics Journal Most Cited Articles in the 2005 to 2009 period" Award for their paper “Mixed-mode cohesive-zone models for fracture of an adhesively-bonded polymer-matrix composite”. This paper was published in Engineering Fracture Mechanics, volume 73(1), pp. 64-78 in  2006.  [Download Paper]

>> New Course for Spring 2010. CE 597 "Advanced topics in Classical and Computational Solid Mechanics" [Course Web site]