Distinguished McKnight University Professor & Director of the Minnesota Space Grant Consortium
Distinguished McKnight University Professor & Director of the Minnesota Space Grant Consortium
Richard James' main area of research is phase transformations in materials - especially shape memory and multiferrroic materials - at large and small scales. This involves the development of mathematical methods for the analysis of materials at atomic and continuum scales, especially the development of multiscale methods for understanding the relation between the behavior of materials on different scales. It also involves advanced methods of bulk synthesis and characterization of new materials in his laboratory, guided by theory. He is currently applying these ideas to the search for interesting materials in several areas:
Several other current projects extend these ideas to new areas of science and engineering:
1. Objective structures motivate the study of new group invariant solutions of Maxwell’s equations. With researchers from TU Munich we have recently found certain “twisted wave” solutions of Maxwell’s equations that interact with helical atomic structures with constructive/destructive interference and potentially could be used as a method of Xray analysis of the structure of helical materials.
2. We are developing methods to design morphing origami structures based on the use of ideas from the analysis of phase transformations.
3. Our work on hysteresis in phase transformations suggests new ways to understand the origins of magnetic hysteresis in soft magnetic materials. We are using these ideas to design new soft magnetic alloys.
4. We are also using ideas from the concept of objective structures to understand the dynamics of nanostructures and gases. In particular we are developing the method of “objective molecular dynamics”, an exact simulation method for special classes of solutions of molecular dynamics. Besides providing efficient simulations, the method links to the Boltzmann equation and offers new insight into non-equilibrium statistical mechanics.
Ph.D., Mechanical Engineering, John Hopkins University, 1979
Sc.B., Engineering, Brown University, 1974
Distinguished McKnight University Professor, Aerospace Engineering & Mechanics, University of Minnesota, 1998-Present
Professor, Aerospace Engineering & Mechanics, University of Minnesota, 1991-Present
Russell J. Penrose Professor, Aerospace Engineering & Mechanics, University of Minnesota, 2001-2011
Associate Professor, Aerospace Engineering & mechanics, University of Minnesota, 1985-1991
Assistant Professor, Division of Engineering, Brown University, 1981-1985
Research Fellow in Mechanics and Thermodynamics, University of Minnesota, 1979-1980
2019: Vannevar Bush Faculty Fellowship
2014: Theodore von Karman Prize, Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM), shared with Weinan E (Awarded at a 5 year Interval)
2009: Brown Engineering Alumni Medal, Brown University
2008: William Prager Medal, Society of Engineering Science
2008: Warner T. Koiter Medal, American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME)
2008: Co-advisor (with P. H. Leo) to Liping Liu, winner of the Best Dissertation Award in the Physical Sciences and Engineering at the University of Minnesota
2007: Honorary Consultant Professorship, Hauzhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, China
2006-2007: Alexander von Humboldt Senior Research Award
2002: John von Nuemann Professorship, TU Munich Mary Shepard B. Upson Visiting Chair, Cornell University College of Engineering
1999: Rothschild Visiting Professor
1998: Cambridge University Best Paper award, ASME/SPIE Smart Materials Distinguished McKnight University Professor
1997: Fellow, American Academy of Mechanics
1993: Featured Review (in Mathematical Review) Member, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton ,Term 1
1991: George Taylor Distinguished Research Award, Institute of Technology, University of Minnesota
1976-1978: IBM Fellow, the John Hopkins University
Richard D. James, Symmetry, invariance and the structure of matter. Proc. International Congress of Mathematicians, (2018). https://eta.impa.br/dl/161.pdf
Fan Feng, Paul Plucinsky, and Richard D. James. Phase transformations and compatibility in helical structures, Journal of the Mechanics and Physics of Solids, 131 (2019): 74-95. https://arxiv.org/pdf/1809.06282.pdf
Richard D. James, Materials from mathematics, AMS Current Events Bulletin. Bull. Am. Math. Soc., 56(1) (January, 2019). https://www.ams.org/journals/bull/2019-56-01/S0273-0979-2018-01644-3/S0273-0979-2018-01644-3.pdf
Ashley Bucsek, William Nunn, Bharat Jalan and Richard D. James, Energy conversion by phase transformation in the small-temperature-difference regime. Annual Review of Materials Research, 50 (2020), 283-318. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-matsci-082019-021824
Huan Liu, Paul Plucinsky, Fan Feng and Richard D. James, Origami and materials science, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences, 379, May 2021. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsta.2020.0113
Hanlin Gu, Jascha Rohmer, Justin Jetter, Lorenz Kienle, Eckhard Quandt and Richard D. James, Exploding and weeping ceramics, Nature, 599, (Nov. 18, 2021), 416-420. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03975-5
Ananya Renuka Balakrishna and Richard D. James, Design of soft magnetic materials, npj Computational Materials, 8 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41524-021-00682-7