News & EventsDepartment Events
Events
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Jan14
EVENT DETAILS
lessAbstract: The microstructural geometry of porous media critically influences their mechanical behavior across a broad spectrum of materials, from geomaterials and biomaterials to engineered structures. Recent developments in imaging techniques, such as X-ray microcomputed tomography, alongside advanced modeling approaches, enable precise characterization of complex morphometries. However, traditional continuum theories often only partially capture this microstructural influence. To address this gap, we propose a unifying framework that leverages Minkowski functionals, as per Hadwiger’s theorem, to quantitatively relate microstructural features to material strength. By conducting qualitative 2D phase-field simulations on synthetic microstructures, we derive a morphometric strength law expressed as an exponential function of the microstructural descriptors, effectively generalizing existing models for metals, ceramics, and geological materials. This relationship demonstrates promising predictive capacity when extended to real porous media, including rocks, bones, and ceramics. Complementing the morphometric approach, machine learning (ML) and deep learning (DL) techniques are employed to accelerate and enhance the assessment of porous media’s mechanical properties. Using scalar morphological descriptors derived from microstructure, a fully automated methodology predicts stress-strain curves from uniaxial compression tests, providing rapid and accurate strength evaluations. To mitigate the reliance on extensive datasets, a novel two-step learning framework—learning latent hardening (LLH)—integrates domain-specific knowledge into deep neural networks, improving predictions in data scarce scenarios. Comparative analysis of six ML/DL models with and without microstructural insight highlights the significant performance gains achieved through domain integration, emphasizing the importance of combining expert knowledge with data-driven methods in material modeling. Furthermore, the evolution of digital rock physics now enables detailed numerical simulations of mechanical behavior at the microstructural level, including elasto plastic deformation and strength estimation. Through comprehensive parametric studies on cemented granular materials, we assess the impact of cementation volume, Young’s modulus, friction, and cohesion on the yield surface of rocks, validated against experimental data. This approach allows us to go beyond semi-analytical criteria, providing a full numerical characterization of the strength and failure behavior of porous materials under various stress paths. Collectively, these advancements foster a deeper understanding of porous media mechanics and open new pathways for the AI-assisted design of materials with tailored properties for structural applications.
Bio: Manolis Veveakis is a Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Duke University and the outgoing Editor-in-Chief of the journal Geomechanics for Energy and the Environment (Elsevier). Before joining Duke University he was a Senior Lecturer at UNSW's School of Petroleum Engineering and a Research Scientist in CSIRO's Division of Earth Sciences and Resource Engineering. Veveakis holds a Diploma in Applied Mathematics and Physics, a MEng in Materials Engineering, an MSc in Applied Mechanics and a PhD in Geomechanics, all from the National Technical University of Athens (Greece).
TIME Wednesday, January 14, 2026 at 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
LOCATION A230, Technological Institute map it
CONTACT Andrew Liguori andrew.liguori@northwestern.edu EMAIL
CALENDAR McCormick - Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE)
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Jan16
EVENT DETAILS
lessAbstract: Flowing waters are drastically impacted by land use change and the introduction of pollutants. Once considered mere conduits of plastic transport, streams are biogeochemically active, and capable of transporting and transforming natural and anthropogenic litter as it moves between terrestrial and marine ecosystems. Plastic pollution, in particular, is ubiquitous and an important component of the urban carbon (C) budget in streams. However, plastics are rarely included in our depictions of the C cycle. Streams and rivers are key features of the C cycle with major impacts on the retention, transformation, and movement of plastics and other sources of C to downstream ecosystems. In the environment, plastic is rapidly colonized by microbial biofilms, and thus, can potentially alter biogeochemical processing of nitrogen, phosphorus, and other forms of C. Despite a growing understanding of plastic distribution and transport in the environment, the role of plastic, a recalcitrant C-based polymer, on the broader C cycle and other important biogeochemical processes (e.g., stream metabolism) is rarely quantified. The overarching theme of my proposed research program is to quantify the relative importance of plastic in ecosystem C budgets, and to determine the landscape-scale and hydrologic variables that drive and predict plastic-C transport, storage, and processing in streams. Because urban streams are tightly coupled to human activity, studying plastic pollution, C cycling, and their interaction is needed to understand fundamental aspects of ecosystem function (e.g., metabolism).
Bio: Dr. Anna Vincent is a biogeochemist and ecosystem ecologist, and is currently a postdoctoral scholar with the Northwestern-Argonne Institute of Science and Engineering. Her current work is focused on understanding how green infrastructure and nature-based solutions can help to mitigate the impacts of heat waves and intense flooding in cities. She is also contributing to the ongoing SmartWater study, which seeks to identify pollution hot spots and hot moments in urban streams, and explores how low-cost high-frequency sensors can be used to track pollutant transit over space and time. She completed her PhD at the University of Notre Dame under the direction of Dr. Jennifer Tank where she assessed controls on inorganic Nitrogen cycling and changes to stream metabolism following storms in agricultural streams. Prior to attending Notre Dame, she obtained a Master’s degree from Loyola University Chicago where she characterized microplastic transport in urban streams using classical stream spiraling metrics and assessed the effects of plastic pollution of microbial community composition. As her postdoctoral appointment nears its end, Anna is actively applying for tenure-track faculty positions, and in today’s seminar, Anna will be providing an overview of her past and current work, and work that she proposes to conduct in the future.
TIME Friday, January 16, 2026 at 2:00 PM - 3:00 PM
LOCATION A230, Technological Institute map it
CONTACT Andrew Liguori andrew.liguori@northwestern.edu EMAIL
CALENDAR McCormick - Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE)
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Jan23
EVENT DETAILS
lessAbstract: Additive manufacturing (AM) of materials can enable rapid development of functional parts of complex geometry, with potential applications in the aerospace, automotive, electronic packaging, and biomedical fields. Three AM techniques are presented. First, Cu-Ni premixed elemental powders are deposited on the pure Ti by laser-directed energy deposition (LDED) using a novel method of extracting Ti from the substrate through melt pool convection. The X-ray diffraction (XRD) pattern and microstructure image reveal the presence of NiTi binary (B2) and Ti2CuNi ternary (B19) hard phases and equiaxed dendritic morphology, respectively, demonstrating ternary alloy coating formation. The coating has a hardness of 550 Hv, which is thrice that of the substrate, and wear resistance that is (80%) higher. Second, the Hydrogel-Infusion Additive Manufacturing (HIAM) process involves 3D printing a polyethylene oxide (PEO) photo-resin using vat polymerization, immersing the polymer in a metal salt solution (Silver nitrate) which allows ionized metal cations to bond to the polymer backbone, followed by calcination/reduction at 500°C to combust the polymer leaving a metal oxide (AgO) / metal product (Ag) that maintains a scaled-down version of the complex as-printed architecture (spring). Finally, the thermal conductivity of additively manufactured continuous fiber composites for applications where heat dissipation is an important consideration, is presented. Bio: Anil Saigal received his B. Tech. In Mechanical Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology Bombay and his M.S. And Ph.D from the Georgia Institute of Technology. He is a Fellow of ASME. He is currently a Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Tufts University and has served as the Chair of the Department.
TIME Friday, January 23, 2026 at 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
LOCATION A230, Technological Institute map it
CONTACT Andrew Liguori andrew.liguori@northwestern.edu EMAIL
CALENDAR McCormick - Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE)
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Jan23
EVENT DETAILS
lessTBA
TIME Friday, January 23, 2026 at 2:00 PM - 3:00 PM
LOCATION A230, Technological Institute map it
CONTACT Andrew Liguori andrew.liguori@northwestern.edu EMAIL
CALENDAR McCormick - Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE)
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Jan28
EVENT DETAILS
lessAbstract: This talk introduces a framework for creating interactive, physically-realistic world models by merging advanced computer vision with differentiable physics simulations. Traditional approaches to building world models often force a trade-off between high visual fidelity and accurate physics. Our work bridges this gap by leveraging differentiable programming to build high-fidelity, interactive digital twins directly from real-world sensor data. We demonstrate how modern computer vision techniques, including Neural Radiance Fields (NeRF) and 3D Gaussian Splatting, can reconstruct detailed 3D scenes from sparse video inputs. The core of our methodology is the integration of these reconstructions with fully differentiable physics engines, such as the Differentiable Material Point Method (DiffMPM). This novel combination enables us to solve challenging inverse problems: by comparing simulated outcomes with real-world observations, we use gradient-based optimization to automatically infer latent physical properties, such as soil friction angles and material stiffness, directly from video. To overcome the computational demands of these physics solvers, we utilize Graph Neural Simulators (GNS) as a learned surrogate model that significantly accelerates simulation time. GNS represents physical systems as graphs of interacting particles, achieving speedups of over 100x compared to traditional methods while generalizing effectively to new scenarios. We also present a hybrid GNS-MPM approach that interleaves the learned simulator with the numerical solver to ensure long-term accuracy and conservation of physical laws. The practical applications of this framework are highlighted through several key examples in robotics and autonomy. We present a system for generating Dynamic Costmaps from drone footage, where real-time 3D reconstruction and GNS-powered weather simulations predict terrain changes to enable safer navigation for autonomous vehicles. We also apply these methods to critical challenges in lunar exploration, such as simulating rover-regolith interaction to mitigate operational hazards. Ultimately, this research paves the way toward interactive "X2Sim" systems that can generate complex physical simulations from natural language or video prompts, opening a new paradigm for the design, control, and optimization of autonomous systems.
Bio: Dr. Krishna Kumar is a J. Neils Thompson Centennial Teaching Fellow and Associate Professor at the University of Texas at Austin and a Core-Faculty at the Oden Institute of Computational Sciences. His research is at the intersection of AI/ML, numerical simulations, and robotics. He directs a $7M NSF-funded national ecosystem for AI integration in engineering and received an NSF CAREER Award in 2024. His research involves developing physical AI and control methods for autonomous manipulation of deformable materials and navigation in extreme environments. As an educator, he received the Dean's Outstanding Teaching Award and runs coding clubs for kids at Austin Public Libraries.
TIME Wednesday, January 28, 2026 at 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
LOCATION A230, Technological Institute map it
CONTACT Andrew Liguori andrew.liguori@northwestern.edu EMAIL
CALENDAR McCormick - Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE)
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Jan30
EVENT DETAILS
lessTBA
TIME Friday, January 30, 2026 at 2:00 PM - 3:00 PM
LOCATION A230, Technological Institute map it
CONTACT Andrew Liguori andrew.liguori@northwestern.edu EMAIL
CALENDAR McCormick - Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE)
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Feb4
EVENT DETAILS
lessAbstract: This talk introduces a framework for creating interactive, physically-realistic world models by merging advanced computer vision with differentiable physics simulations. Traditional approaches to building world models often force a trade-off between high visual fidelity and accurate physics. Our work bridges this gap by leveraging differentiable programming to build high-fidelity, interactive digital twins directly from real-world sensor data. We demonstrate how modern computer vision techniques, including Neural Radiance Fields (NeRF) and 3D Gaussian Splatting, can reconstruct detailed 3D scenes from sparse video inputs. The core of our methodology is the integration of these reconstructions with fully differentiable physics engines, such as the Differentiable Material Point Method (DiffMPM). This novel combination enables us to solve challenging inverse problems: by comparing simulated outcomes with real-world observations, we use gradient-based optimization to automatically infer latent physical properties, such as soil friction angles and material stiffness, directly from video. To overcome the computational demands of these physics solvers, we utilize Graph Neural Simulators (GNS) as a learned surrogate model that significantly accelerates simulation time. GNS represents physical systems as graphs of interacting particles, achieving speedups of over 100x compared to traditional methods while generalizing effectively to new scenarios. We also present a hybrid GNS-MPM approach that interleaves the learned simulator with the numerical solver to ensure long-term accuracy and conservation of physical laws. The practical applications of this framework are highlighted through several key examples in robotics and autonomy. We present a system for generating Dynamic Costmaps from drone footage, where real-time 3D reconstruction and GNS-powered weather simulations predict terrain changes to enable safer navigation for autonomous vehicles. We also apply these methods to critical challenges in lunar exploration, such as simulating rover-regolith interaction to mitigate operational hazards. Ultimately, this research paves the way toward interactive "X2Sim" systems that can generate complex physical simulations from natural language or video prompts, opening a new paradigm for the design, control, and optimization of autonomous systems.
Bio: Dr. Krishna Kumar is a J. Neils Thompson Centennial Teaching Fellow and Associate Professor at the University of Texas at Austin and a Core-Faculty at the Oden Institute of Computational Sciences. His research is at the intersection of AI/ML, numerical simulations, and robotics. He directs a $7M NSF-funded national ecosystem for AI integration in engineering and received an NSF CAREER Award in 2024. His research involves developing physical AI and control methods for autonomous manipulation of deformable materials and navigation in extreme environments. As an educator, he received the Dean's Outstanding Teaching Award and runs coding clubs for kids at Austin Public Libraries.
TIME Wednesday, February 4, 2026 at 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
LOCATION A230, Technological Institute map it
CONTACT Andrew Liguori andrew.liguori@northwestern.edu EMAIL
CALENDAR McCormick - Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE)
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Feb6
EVENT DETAILS
lessAbstract: Chlorination is the use of chlorine as a disinfecting agent to eliminate bacteria from drinking water. During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, physicians and sanitary engineers only used chlorine on sewage or experimentally to treat water during outbreaks of typhoid fever, but not as a permanent measure. Experts and citizens alike distrusted chlorine due to the unpleasant odour and taste it added to water and safety concerns. After all, putting chemicals into the water was, for some, contrary to the idea that ‘pure water’ was better obtained by protecting watersheds than by treating an already polluted source. Chlorination was first adopted as a permanent water treatment technology in the United States in 1908, and from there, it spread worldwide, radically changing water management and reducing mortality and morbidity on an impressive scale. My talk will answer the question of why this technology, despite initial resistance, was adopted so quickly.
Bio: Edisson Aguilar Torres is a historian of technology and Latin America. His research explores the interconnection between state formation and the construction of small-scale infrastructure for water supply systems in the Colombian countryside during the 20th century, as well as the global history of water treatment technologies. His book manuscript, The Delegatory State: Water infrastructure, Community, and State Formation in 20th-century Colombia, challenges notions of the state as an overly centralising project that destroys local knowledge and practices by imposing large-scale infrastructures. Instead, it shows how the Colombian state decided to partially delegate water provision in rural areas to local communities, using a system that relied on state engineering, small-scale water supply systems, local management and maintenance, and Indigenous and peasant labour traditions. The rationale behind that decision combined ideals of citizenship participation with more practical concerns about the costs for the state of providing public goods directly. Insufficient investment, though, hindered full access to drinking water in the countryside, creating water inequalities that persist today. Pipes for the Community addresses the socio-technical system that came to dominate water supply in the Colombian rural areas as a way to understand the importance of small-scale technology in the landscape of modernity.
TIME Friday, February 6, 2026 at 2:00 PM - 3:00 PM
LOCATION A230, Technological Institute map it
CONTACT Andrew Liguori andrew.liguori@northwestern.edu EMAIL
CALENDAR McCormick - Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE)
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Feb11
EVENT DETAILS
lessTBA
TIME Wednesday, February 11, 2026 at 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
LOCATION A230, Technological Institute map it
CONTACT Andrew Liguori andrew.liguori@northwestern.edu EMAIL
CALENDAR McCormick - Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE)
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Feb18
EVENT DETAILS
lessTBA
TIME Wednesday, February 18, 2026 at 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
LOCATION A230, Technological Institute map it
CONTACT Andrew Liguori andrew.liguori@northwestern.edu EMAIL
CALENDAR McCormick - Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE)
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Feb27
EVENT DETAILS
lessTBA
TIME Friday, February 27, 2026 at 2:00 PM - 3:00 PM
LOCATION A230, Technological Institute map it
CONTACT Andrew Liguori andrew.liguori@northwestern.edu EMAIL
CALENDAR McCormick - Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE)
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Mar11
EVENT DETAILS
lessTBA
TIME Wednesday, March 11, 2026 at 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
LOCATION A230, Technological Institute map it
CONTACT Andrew Liguori andrew.liguori@northwestern.edu EMAIL
CALENDAR McCormick - Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE)