Prof. Constantinos Soutis is a graduate of the University of London (BSc, Queen Mary College and MSc, Imperial College London, Aeronautics) and Cambridge University (Department of Engineering, PhD). He has taught and performed research in the areas of mechanics of aerospace composite materials and structures at the University of Cambridge (1986–1991), University of Leicester (1991–1994), Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the United States of America (2000–2001 as a Visiting Professor in the Department of Aeronautics & Astronautics), and Imperial College London (1994–2002), where he held a personal chair in composite structures in the department of Aeronautics. Professor Soutis was the first Professor of Aerospace Engineering at the University of Sheffield where he served as Head of Aerospace and Head of the Composite Systems Innovation Centre (Founding Director) until September 2012. In October 2012, he was appointed at the University of Manchester as Chair of Aerospace Engineering, Director of the Aerospace Research Institute and in 2013 also Director of the Northwest Composites Centre. On 5 August 2014, Professor Soutis was elected Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering, FREng, distinguished for his major contributions to the science and technology of the mechanics and mechanisms of failure of fibre--composite materials based upon polymeric matrices. Some 50 PhD students have qualified under his supervision and guidance.
Dr. Dianyun Zhang joined the Purdue University School of Aeronautics and Astronautics as an Assistant Professor in 2020. Prior to this, she was an assistant professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Connecticut. Before that, she was a research associate in the Department of Aerospace Engineering at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Dr. Zhang received her dual bachelor degrees in Mechanical Engineering and Aerospace Engineering in 2009, and Ph.D. degree in Aerospace Engineering in 2014, all from the University of Michigan. Her broad area of research interest is in experimental characterization and computational modeling of lightweight materials. The focus is on the composite process models, multiscale modeling methods, and progressive damage analyses across different material length scales. Her research has been funded by several federal agencies and private companies. She is also the recipient of the recent NSF CAREER award.
