C.C. Mei Distinguished Speaker Series

The C.C. Mei Distinguished Speaker Series was founded and has been organized since 2015, in honor of Prof. Chiang C. Mei. It aims to provide a vibrant forum for highly distinguished speakers, from around the world, to share their research with the CEE, MIT, and the local Boston community.

The talks are held on Mondays 4:15-5:00 pm in Building 1-190 (campus map).
Reception starts at 4:00 pm. Check our event page for upcoming speakers.

2024 Speakers

Prof. Oded Shoseyov

Hebrew University of Jerusalem
The Plant Age: Materials for the Future

2023 Speakers

Prof. Wei Chen

Northwestern University
Data Driven Computational Design of Engineered Material Systems

Prof. Arun Majumdar

Stanford University
Climate & Sustainability: The defining issue of the 21st century

Prof. Pradeep Sharma

University of Houston
Flexoelectricity & Electrets

Prof. Paulo Monteiro

University of California, Berkeley
Synchrotron X-ray probes to study the multiscale structure of concrete

2022 Speakers

Prof. Alan Needleman

Texas A&M University
Discrete defect plasticity & implications of requiring non-negative dissipation

Prof. Alain Goriely

University of Oxford
The Mechanics of Chirality: from Darwin’s Perversion to Feynman’s Obsession

2019 Speakers

Prof. Stéphane Zaleski

Sorbonne University
Challenges in the modeling of multiphase flow from large to small scales

Prof. Detlef Lohse

Twente University
Rayleigh vs. Marangoni

Prof. Andrea Prosperetti

(No recording available)
University of Houston
Resolved simulations of particulate flows

Prof. Jeffrey Koseff

Stanford University
The interaction between gravity currents and breaking internal waves

Prof. Sébastien Candel

Ecole Centrale Paris
Progress and challenges in combustion dynamics

Prof. Samer Madanat

New York University and UC Berkeley
Flood protection infrastructure, transportation, and government networks

Dr. David Hibbitt

Founder & retired chairman of ABAQUS Inc.
ABAQUS and it’s market: evolution of an engineering simulation software venture

Prof. Ann Karagozian

UCLA
Control of jets in energy and propulsion systems

10/01/2018	Prof. Andrew Lo	MIT	Fear, greed and financial crisis 10 years later	Financial crisis, evolutionary models of human behavior, nonlinear dynamical systems	YouTube
03/19/2018	Prof. Nadine Aubry	Northeastern University	From reduced models of turbulence to microfluidics	Fluid mechanics, low dimensional models, microfluidics	YouTube
04/09/2018	Prof. Arif Masud	University of Illinois Urbana	A new class of numerical methods with enhanced stability and accuracy: application to residual-based turbulence and non-newtonian bio-fluid dynamics	Numerical methods, fluid dynamics	YouTube
04/23/2018	Prof. Serge Hoogendoorn	Delft University of Technology	Making mobility smart again	Urban mobility, traffic flow, simulation and management	YouTube
05/07/2018	Prof. Maria Feng	Columbia University	If Bridges Could Talk	Advanced imaging and sensing of structures, sustainability and resilience	YouTube
05/14/2018	Prof. Howard Stone	Princeton University	New ideas for separation processes	Dynamics of complex fluids	YouTube

02/27/2017	Prof. Costas Synolakis	University of Southern California	The frontiers of tsunami hydrodynamics	Tsunami hydrodynamics, coastal engineering, Fukushima	YouTube
03/06/2017	Prof. Ashok Gadgil	Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory	Inventing environmental technologies for the bottom of the pyramid: some lessons learnt	Water treatment, technology placement, systems, energy efficiency	YouTube
04/10/2017	Prof. Ruben Kretzschmar	ETH Zurich	Speciation and biogeochemical cycling of arsenic in a minerotrophic peak wetland	Arsenic, speciation, redox, wetlands	YouTube
04/24/2017	Prof. Emanuela Del Gado	Georgetown University	Soft matter in construction: computational statistical physics of sustainable cements	Amorphous solids, microstructure, non-linear mechanics, cement gels, jammed soft solids	YouTube
10/02/2017	Prof. George Sugihara	UCSD	Understanding nature holistically	Chaos and patterns, data-analysis and prediction, ecology, environment, and finance	YouTube

03/28/2016	Prof. Huajian Gao	Brown University	Mechanics as an enabling tool in bioinspired materials and biological interactions of nanomaterials	Mechanics and materials, fracture amorphous alloys, metallic glasses, lithium ion battery	YouTube
04/04/2016	Prof. Mimi A. R. Koehl	University of California, Berkeley	Swimming and crawling in a turbulent world	Swimming, turbulence, biofluid dynamics, biomechanics
04/23/2016	Prof. L. Pamela Cook	University of Delaware	Non-newtonian fluids and the mathematics of surfactant fluids	Fluids, mathematics, surfactant fluids	YouTube
05/02/2016	Prof. James M. Hughes	Emory University School of Medicine and Rollins School of Public Health	Reflections on emerging microbial threats	Emerging infections, antimicrobial resistance, One Health, SARS, MERS	YouTube
05/23/2016	Prof. Steve Weiner	Weizmann Institute of Science	The complex 3D hierarchical organization of bone: surprising structure-function relations	FIB-SEM 3D image reconstruction, embedded geometrical motifs, bone materials	YouTube
10/17/2016	Prof. Luis Amaral	Northwestern University	Traveling reports from an “illegal alien”: crossing into scientific domains without a degree	Complex Systems, data Science, modeling	YouTube
10/24/2016	Prof. Jacob Israelachvili	University of California Santa Barbara	Dynamic (non-equilibrium, rate, time, and history-dependent) adhesion and rupture forces in material, soft matter and biological systems	Non-equilibrium interaction forces	YouTube
10/31/2016	Prof. S. Travis Waller	University of New South Wales	Representing information and adaptivity in transportation network planning	Transport, complex networks, graph theory	YouTube

03/09/2015	Prof. Henri Van Damme	ESPCI-ParisTech and MSE2, MIT-CNRS	From sand castles to urban modeling: A physicist’s naive thoughts on construction and cities	Vernacular architecture, earth, concrete, urban physics, sustainability
03/30/2015	Prof. Emmanuel Villermaux	Université de Provence and Institut Universitaire de France	Explosive fragmentation	Explosions, fragmentation, thin films, drops	YouTube
05/04/2015	Prof. Alessandro Vespignani	Northeastern University Physics Department	Modeling and forecast of contagion phenomena in the age of big data	Complex networks, network theory, big data, phenomena, modeling	YouTube
09/21/2015	Prof. Michael Zhang	University of California Davis	From individual behavior to COLLECTIVE DYNAMICS: modeling the control of congestion waves in highway networks	Traffic congestion, flow control, driver behavior, queuing networks	YouTube
09/28/2015	Prof. Chris Field	Stanford University	Climate change: mapping the problem space and the opportunity space	Climate change, risk management	YouTube
10/05/2015	Prof. Harry L. Swinney	University of Texas at Austin	Universality in nature	Instability, pattern formation, dynamical systems	YouTube
10/19/2015	Prof. Simon Levin	Princeton University	The challenge of sustainability	Sustainability, modeling, public goods, economics, ecology	YouTube