(May 2025) Our paper “Extreme nonlinearity by layered materials through inverse design” is published in Science Advances (Z. Zhao†, R. D. Kundu†, O. Sigmund, and X. S. Zhang). Link to paper.
Principal Investigator
Professor Shelly Zhang is an Associate Professor at both the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department and the Mechanical Science and Engineering Department in the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She is also a Faculty Fellow at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA).
Welcome
Welcome to MISSION Laboratory! Our research group focuses on exploring
– multi-physics topology optimization
– additive manufacturing, 3D/4D printing
– stochastic and machine learning algorithms
– uncertainty quantification
to create next-generation multi-functional, sustainable, and resilient metamaterials, robots, and structures for applications at different scales, from as large as high-rise buildings to as small as material microstructures.
Opportunities
We are always seeking self-motivated, creative, and hard-working students and postdocs to join our MISSION Lab. We are particularly interested in candidates with a strong background in topology optimization, computational mechanics, 3D/4D printing, high-performance computing, machine learning methods, and uncertainty quantification. To apply, please contact Prof. Zhang (zhangxs@illinois.edu) with your CV, publications, and transcripts. Please apply through the graduate application at CEE Illinois and indicate your interest in working with Prof. X. Shelly Zhang. You may find application instruction to our graduate program HERE.