PhD Position Available in Structural Engineering at Penn State University

About PI

Dr. Pinlei Chen will join the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE) at Pennsylvania State University (PSU) as an assistant professor in August 2018. She has research interests in computational mechanics, additive manufacturing, numerical simulations, modeling of interface mechanics, and stabilized methods. Her research has been published in renowned journals including CMAME and IJNME. Prior to joining PSU, Dr. Chen earned her Ph.D. Degree in Structural Engineering at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign with a concentration in computational science and engineering.

Now she is seeking talented and motivated graduate students to join her research group. The preferred starting time would be Fall 2018 or Spring 2019. Applicants with a background in civil engineering (a specialty in structural engineering is preferred) or mechanical engineering and an interest in computational mechanics are strongly encouraged to apply. Financial support will be provided.

Position Description
Applicants should have a B.S. or M.S. in Civil Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, or a related field. Applicants should: 1) possess the ability to work independently, as well as in a team; 2) have fine scientific writing skills and fluency (both oral and written) in English; 3) have some programming experience (e.g., MATLAB, Fortran, Python, etc.).

Preferred qualifications:
•        A master's degree is preferred;
•        Familiarity with Finite Element Analysis (FEA) is highly desirable;
•        A strong computational mechanics background;
•        Familiarity with Fortran and MATLAB.

Interested applicants should contact Dr. Chen directly. Please send your resume, personal statement, transcript, GRE, and TOEFL (for international students) scores to pchen48@illinois.edu.

I am  a student who would like to apply for PhD position in 20 fall.  I am focusing the dynamics of grain boundary and multi-scale analysis of material.  I  also have backgrounds of topology optimization.  Is it possible to be encouraged to apply for your group then?