M.B. Tucker, D.R. Hines, T. Li, A quality map of transfer printing, Journal of Applied Physics, 106, 103504, (2009)  DOI: 10.1063/1.3259422

T. Li, Z. Zhang, Snap-through instability of graphene on substrates, Nanoscale Research Letters,DOI: 10.1007/s11671-009-9460-1 (2009). (Open access)

Zhigang Suo , Allen E. and Marilyn M. Puckett Professor of Mechanics and Materials at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS), founder and architect of iMechanica , has been honored with a Humboldt Research Award .

The award is granted in recognition of a researcher's entire achievements to date to academics whose fundamental discoveries, new theories, or insights have had a significant impact on their own discipline and who are expected to continue producing cutting-edge achievements in future are eligible to be nominated for a Humboldt Research Award.

We invite applications for Ph.D. student positions in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, and Maryland NanoCenter, University of Maryland, College Park. We look for talented and motivated applicants interested in pursuing a Ph.D. degree in one of the following areas:

•    Mechanics of inorganic/organic hybrid nanostructures in flexible electronics
•    Mechanics of graphene-based nanostructures and nanomaterials

Requirements:

1.    A M.S. or equivalent degree in solid mechanics, materials science, physics or a related field.  Talented applicants with a B.S. degree in the above field will also be considered.

A post-doctoral research associate position is available immediately in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, and Maryland NanoCenter at the University of Maryland, College Park, in the area of multi-scale modeling (from atomistic, molecular, coarse-grained to continuum) of carbon-based nanostructured materials. Material properties of specific interest include mechanical and electrical properties, with special focus on deformation/failure mechanisms and bandgap engineering. 

A Ph.D. in solid mechanics, materials science, physics or a related field is required. The candidate should have well-developed multi-scale modeling and simulation skills, established publication record, and strong verbal/writing communication skills.

Assistant Professor, Fluid Dynamics

Department of Mechanical Engineering
A. James Clark School of Engineering
University of Maryland, College Park

The Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Maryland seeks applications for a tenuretrack
faculty position at the Assistant Professor level in the area of Fluid Dynamics. Specifically,
applicants studying both the fundamental and applied aspects of flow physics using computational and/or
theoretical techniques with a particular focus on the role of interfacial fluid dynamics within flows across

Obama spoke at the National Academy of Sciences on Apr. 27, 2009, in which he states his commitment to doubling of science funding and stem education. From his speech,

 "At such a difficult moment, there are those who say we cannot afford to invest in science, that support for research is somehow a luxury at moments defined by necessities.  I fundamentally disagree.  Science is more essential for our prosperity, our security, our health, our environment and our quality of life than it has ever been before."

You may also find a recent pertinent discussion in iMechanica interesting.

 A video of Obama speech follows.

http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1467247.1467259

by Prof. David A. Patterson (Professor of Computer Science at U.C. Berkeley,Fellow and past president of ACM)

Viewpoint from a Berkeley professor after 32 years of mentoring Ph.D. students. Hope you enjoy as I do.

You may also find an earlier discussion thread in iMechanica interesting:

Learning to be a PhD advisor

Stop Trying To Get Tenure and Start Trying To Enjoy Yourself

One of my junior colleagues forwarded the above article to me, and I read with interest. I think it could also resonate the interest of many people here in iMechanica. I welcome your comments, especially from our been-there done-that tenured colleagues.

At the 2009 ASME International Mechanical Engineering Congress & Exposition (IMECE 2009)

November 13-19,  2009, Lake Buena Vista, Florida

Track 12: Mechanics of Solids, Structures and Fluids

Symposium on Mechanics of Integrated Material Structures in Advanced and Emerging Technologies

Deadline for abstract submission: March 2, 2009.

Call for papers

2009 MRS Spring Meeting, San Francisco, CA, April 13-17

Symposium PP: Materials and Devices for Flexible and Stretchable Electronics

Abstract Deadline: 3 November 2008

www.mrs.org/spring2009

The number of registered users of iMechanica reached 9000 on 13 October 2008, after two years and one month since the website launch. The total number of posts is 4036, the total number of comments is 8888, and the total web hits is estimated to be more than 30,000,000.

Hosted at Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Science and maintained by a growing number of volunteers, iMechanica aims

Giving presentations at conferences or seminar series is a vital part of a researcher's professional life.  Listening to others' presentations is also one of the best ways to stay current with the frontier of a research field. While the audience in conference/seminar room is often limited, a presentation posted online can be virtually viewed by any interested audience. At iMechanica, users have started to post their presentation slides, quite often as the attachments of a post briefing the presentation.  Such a way is simple and effective, but may not be the best way for everyone for the following reasons:

We study the effects of grain boundary adhesion and grain size on the ductility of thin metal films well bonded to polymer substrates, using finite element method. It is shown that the ductility of polymer-supported metal films increases approximately linearly as the grain boundary adhesion increases, and as the grain size decreases. A rule-of-thumb estimate of the ductility of polymer-supported metal films agrees well with the simulation results.

In press, Scripta Materialia, 2008 

DOI: 10.1016/j.scriptamat.2008.06.058

Dear fellow iMechanica users,

Many of you have experienced unstable access to iMechanica recently.  To our best knowledge, such unstable performance can be related to the fast-growing user volume of iMechanica. We have been working with Lesley Lam at OIT of Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences to cure such growing pains of iMechanica.  We apologize for any inconvenience due to unstable access to iMechanica, and appreciate your understanding while we're working on this issue.  The support from all of you has been vital to iMechanica since day one and will continue to be so for the years to come.

The number of registered users of iMechanica reaches 7000 on 11 May 2008. So far, our fellow iMechanicians have contributed 3172 posts and 7425 comments.  The evolving statistics of iMechanica
(see the latest updates here and here) shows a steady growth with no sign of slowing down. 

Check out the earlier milestones of iMechanica when the number of registered users reached:

6000

Dear fellow iMechanicians:

After some technical problems over the past weekend, iMechanica is now back on full service. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and thank for your patience.

We are particularly grateful to Ms. Lesley Lam in OIT of Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences for her prompt fix of the problem.

Well-known for its high yield strength, metallic glass often suffers from its low ductility and intrinsic brittleness, as discussed in a recent iMech jClub theme on plasticity and failure in metallic glasses led by Yanfei Gao.

As the most rigid cytoskeletal filaments, microtubules bear compressive forces in living cells, balancing the tensile forces within the cytoskeleton to maintain the cell shape. It is often observed that, in living cells, microtubules under compression severely buckle into short wavelengths. By contrast, when compressed, isolated microtubules in vitro buckle into single long-wavelength arcs. The critical buckling force of the microtubules in vitro is two orders of magnitude lower than that of the microtubules in living cells.

From Prof. Weidong Zhu at
University of Maryland, Baltimore County

At 71, Physics Professor Is a Web Star

Most frequently e-mailed by NYTimes.com readers in the past 30 days, the above article features MIT physics professor, Walter H. G. Lewin, on how his free physics lecture videos online have won him devotees all over the world.

While preparing a talk on iMechanica , I came across the following video "Information R/evolution" by Michael Wesch, an assistant professor of anthropology at Kansas State University.  This thought provoking video echoes a recent comment on "The future of knowledge?"

Enjoy!

Attending conferences is one of the essential professional activities for scientific researchers. Conferences take various forms, such as community-wide meetings (e.g., MRS meetings, ASME congress, APS meetings), and topic-focused meetings/workshops (e.g., Plasticity07, Gordon Research Conferences(GRC)).  While people have different preferences on the types of conference to attend (e.g., see a recent iMech poll initiated by Biswajit Banerjee ), here are some common positive driving forces to motivate one to attend a conference: