Sinan Keten Receives Young Investigator Medal
Keten was honored for his contributions to molecular modeling
Northwestern Engineering’s Sinan Keten has received the Young Investigator Medal from the Society of Engineering Science.
The prize is awarded to one or two early career researchers each year who have already made an impact on their fields. The Society cited Keten for “his outstanding contributions to the molecular modeling of the mechanical properties of polymer thin films, nanocomposites, biological, and bioinspired materials.”
Keten joins Northwestern Engineering Professors Yonggang Huang and Horacio Espinosa, who received the Young Investigator Medal in 2006 and 2007, respectively. Keten will officially accept the award in October 2018 at the 55th annual Technical Meeting of the Society of Engineering Science in Madrid, Spain.
“I am extremely honored to receive the SES Young Investigator Medal,” said Keten, associate professor of mechanical engineering and civil and environmental engineering. “SES is a vibrant society that promotes activities at the interface of basic sciences and engineering and is essentially a natural ‘home’ for mechanics and materials researchers.”
Keten works on computational materials science and mechanics with an emphasis on polymer nanocomposites and biomolecular materials. He has established theoretical models and multiscale simulation techniques to study the physics of soft materials more efficiently and accurately. His research group has made key discoveries on the mechanical behavior of biological materials and fundamental contributions to establishing materials-by-design approaches to bioinspired systems.
A member of Northwestern’s faculty since 2010, Keten has received several awards, including the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers and the 2015 Young Investigator Award from the Office of Naval Research. This summer, he was selected to participate in the National Academy of Engineering’s 23rd annual US Frontiers of Engineering symposium.