Richard D. James
Distinguished McKnight University Professor
Richard D. James
Distinguished McKnight University Professor
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Distinguished McKnight University Professor
Distinguished McKnight University Professor
Research Page | UMN Experts Page
Professor James' traditional area of research is phase transformations in materials, especially shape memory and multiferrroic materials. This involves the development of mathematical methods for the analysis of materials at atomic and continuum scales. He also works on a variety of topics in mechanics and electromagnetism: origami design of structures, scaling laws for fluid-structure-rigid body interaction applied to prehistoric life, space and marine exploration, structure determination via constructive interference in electromagnetism, and the AI-guided design of a vertical axis wind turbine. A unifying aspect of his research is the use of group theoretic methods to achieve simplification. Recently, he is extending these methods to the atomic scale with particular focus on superconductivity and superfluidity.
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