Student Chapter
Student Chapter
This chapter is a nationwide chapter to help promote computational mechanics to young researchers and improve student engagement and professional development within our community.
Let’s connect @USACMStudentChapter
USACM Student Chapter Seminar Series
December 22, 2025; 11:00am PST
Speaker: Alex (Xiangyu) Sun, University of California, Irvine
Multi-material Multi-physics Topology Optimization with Physics-informed Gaussian Process Priors
Abstract:
Traditional ML-based topology optimization (TO) methods suffer from high computational cost, spectral bias, and limited applicability to multi-material, multi-physics problems with non–self-adjoint objectives. To overcome these limitations, a mesh-free physics-informed Gaussian process (GP) framework for TO is introduced.
- Represents the primary, adjoint, and design variables using independent GP priors, whose mean functions are parameterized by neural networks (NNs).
- Estimates all parameters simultaneously by minimizing a unified loss constructed from adjoint objectives, potential energy functionals, and design constraints.
- Effectively solves multi-physics, multi-material TO problems, producing super-resolution topologies with sharp interfaces and physically interpretable material distributions.
Bio:
Dr. Alex (Xiangyu) Sun is a postdoctoral scholar in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at the University of California, Irvine, supervised by Prof. Ramin Bostanabad. His current research integrates physics-informed machine learning, computational mechanics, and design optimization to enable efficient and interpretable topology optimization. Prior to UCI, Dr. Sun worked as a research scientist at the Corning Corp, and as a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.
He earned his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from Johns Hopkins University. Dr. Sun’s work spans scientific machine learning, multi-physics design, and high-rate experimental mechanics under extreme loading. His research vision is to establish an AI-enabled framework that unifies experimental methodologies and computational tools for designing engineered material–structure systems that perform reliably under extreme environments for aerospace and defense applications.
Past Seminars
Past recordings of the Student Chapter Seminar Series can be found here.
Past Student Chapter seminar information can be found here.
Student Chapter News
USACM Berkeley Opens Fall 2025 MechBytes Seminar & Coffee Hours Series
The USACM Student Chapter at UC Berkeley is hosting its Fall 2025 MechBytes Seminar and Coffee Hours series. The first session took place on September 26 in 745 Davis Hall, featuring Claudio Perez from UC Berkeley speaking on high-performance computing and finite-element methods. The second session was held on October 10 in 3110 Etcheverry Hall, where Ian Li presented collaborative work with Lawrence Livermore on asteroid airburst simulations using smoothed particle hydrodynamics.
Recordings of both talks are now available on the USACM-Berkeley YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@USACM-BerkeleyDepartmental.
Upcoming events will be posted regularly at https://mechanics-berkeley.github.io/fall25/
USACM @ Boston University Opens Fall 2025 Seminar Series
The USACM Student Chapter at Boston University is hosting its Fall 2025 Seminar series. The first session took place on November 21 in 730 Commonwealth Ave, featuring Yi Yang from Massachusetts Institute of Technology presenting on
"A Geometric-Mechanical Model of Ridge Morphogenesis on Butterfly Wing Scales"
Past student chapter news can be found here.
Some past in person events: (1) Mentorship program USNCCM 18, (2) Student Meet & Greet & Bowling USNCCM 18, (3) Seminar UC Berkeley
FAQ
Q: Are there additional dues required to join the USACM student chapter?
A: No additional dues are required.
Q: Who is eligible to join the USACM student chapter?
A: All people interested in computational mechanics are welcome to join. However, only USACM student members are eligible for student events.
Additionally, USACM student members who have graduated within 2 years are also eligible to participate in student events.
Q: How do I join the USACM student chapter?
A: Join us on our official discord server to keep up to date with our activities.
Q: Want to volunteer with the USACM Student Chapter?
A: Please send emails to: studentchapter@usacm.org. We are always looking for new students or postdocs who graduated within a year to take on roles as executive members or set up local student chapters.
Q: How do I become a USACM student member?
A: Fill out the membership form.
Organization
January 2025 - December 2026
Mentors
Jessica Zhang, Carnegie Mellon University
John Evans, University of Colorado Boulder
David Littlewood, Sandia National Laboratories
Patrick Diehl, Los Alamos National Laboratory
Osama Raisuddin, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Student Leadership
Chair: Yanrong Xiao, Yale University
Vice-Chair: Joan Ejeta, North Carolina A&T State University
Member-at-Large: Joseph Amponsah, Iowa State University
Dila Kandel, University of Utah
Elaheh Mehdizadeh, University of Pittsburgh
Executive Members
Kishore Appunhi Nair, Johns Hopkins University
Gargeya Bhamidipati, Johns Hopkins University
Xuan Hu, University of California, Berkeley
Ozge Ozbayram, Johns Hopkins University