Ph.D. position in Mechanical Engineering at Villanova University

There is one open Ph.D. student position with financial support (both tuition and stipend) in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Villanova University. The successful applicant will work with Dr. David Cereceda in the Multiscale Modeling and Machine Learning (M3L) Laboratory on interdisciplinary research topics that involve Computational Mechanics, Multiscale Modeling of Materials and Machine Learning.

Qualifications

• Bachelor or Master’s degree in Mechanical Engineering, Materials Science and Engineering or related disciplines. 

• Strong background in Solid and Computational Mechanics. 

• Willingness and motivation to work in a highly interdisciplinary field. 

• Prior experience in Multiscale Modeling and High-Performance Computing is desirable but not required.

How to apply

Interested candidates are invited to email Dr. David Cereceda (david.cereceda@jhu.edu) with her/his latest CV, a statement describing her/his research experience and interests, B.S. and M.S. transcripts, English test scores (foreign applicants) and the contact information for 3 references, all as email attachments in PDF format. This and any other specific inquiries should be addressed with “#Name: Ph.D. applicant-2017” in the subject line.

Deadline: Although the official deadline for Fall 2017 admission is Feb. 15, we can still accept student application in case by case situation.

About Villanova University 

Since 1842, Villanova University’s intellectual tradition has been the cornerstone of an academic community in which students learn to think critically, act compassionately and succeed while serving others. There are more than 10,000 undergraduate, graduate and law students in the University's six colleges—the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, the Villanova School of Business, the College of Engineering, the College of Nursing, the College of Professional Studies and the Villanova University Charles Widger School of Law. Ranked among the nation’s top universities, U.S. News & World Report ranks Villanova as tied for the 50th best National University in the U.S. for 2017, Villanova supports its students’ intellectual growth and prepares them to become ethical leaders who create positive change everywhere life takes them. For more, visit www.villanova.edu.

About the Principal Investigator

Dr. David Cereceda will join the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Villanova University in the Fall of 2017 as a tenure-track Assistant Professor. Dr. David Cereceda is currently a Postdoctoral Fellow with Prof. Lori Graham-Brady at Johns Hopkins University, within the Hopkins Extreme Materials Institute. His research at Hopkins is aimed at understanding the dynamic fragmentation of brittle materials under extreme loading conditions. Dr. David Cereceda received his Ph.D. in Nuclear Engineering from Polytechnic University of Madrid in 2015, under the guidance of Prof. Jaime Marian and Prof. José Manuel Perlado. His Ph.D. research, performed at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and University of California Los Angeles with Prof. Jaime Marian, was focused on the multiscale modeling of body-centered cubic metals like tungsten from atomistic to engineering scales. His ongoing research continues the development of computational models to predict materials behavior across multiple spatial and temporal scales, with particular interest in studying the potential of Machine Learning for these applications.