Principal Investigator
Penghui Cao
Associate Professor 2024 – present
Assistant Professor 2019 – 2024
Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
University of California, Irvine
Postdoctoral Associate, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2014 – 2018
Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering, Boston University, 2010 – 2014
Graduate Students
Hangman Chen
Ph.D. student (09/2020 – present )
MSc, Carnegie Mellon University, 2020
BE, Xiamen University, 2018
Email: hangmanc@uci.edu
Research interests: Radiation Damage, Defects
Bin Xing
Ph.D. student (09/2021 – present )
BE, Wuhan University, 2019
Email: bxing2@uci.edu
Research interests: Machine Learning, Diffusion
Kourosh Jafari Ghalejooghi
Ph.D. student (12/2022 – present )
BS, University of Tehran, 2022
Email: kjafarig@uci.edu
Research interests:
Wanjuan Zou
Ph.D. student (09/2022 – present )
BS/MS, Wuhan University of Technology, 2020/2022
Email: wanjuanz@uci.edu
Research interests:
Dianalaura Cueto Duenas
Ph.D. student (co-advised with Derek Dunn-Rankin)
MSc, University of California Irvine, 2022
Email: dcuetodu@uci.edu
Research interests: Methane clathrate, Dissociation
Kevin Gellerman
MS student (09/2022 – present )
BS, University of California, Los Angeles, 2020
Email: gellermk@uci.edu
Research interests:
Postdoctoral Associate
Dr. Bijun Xie
Postdoctoral Scholar, University of California, Irvine, 08/2022 – present
Ph.D. from Institute of Metal Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 2021
Email: bijunx@uci.edu
Research interests: In-situ SEM, TEM imaging
Undergraduate Students
Sunny Lin
BS in Mechanical Engineering, 2026
Email: hunghuil@uci.edu
Triet Ho
BS in Aerospace Engineering, 2026
Email: homt3@uci.edu
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Group Alumni
Xinyi Wang, Ph.D., 08/2023, Thesis: “Dislocation Motions in Multi-Principal Element Alloys and Effects of Chemical Fluctuations”. Currently Postdoctoral Researcher at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Max Phan, Undergraduate Researcher, 09/2022-07/2023. Currently Science Undergraduate Laboratory Intern at National Renewable Energy Laboratory
Lihao Shi, MSc, 04/2023. Currently Ph.D. student in Nuclear Engineering & Radiological Sciences at The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
Han Wang, MSc, 12/2022. Currently Mechanical Engineer at Kaman Corporation, California
Victoria Feng, Undergraduate Researcher, 04/2021-04/2022. Currently graduate student in Mechanical Engineering, University of California, Irvine
Harper Xu, Undergraduate Researcher, 04/2021-01/2022. Currently graduate student in Mechanical Engineering, University of California, Berkeley
Dr. Zhao Fan, Postdoctoral Scholar, 2021-2022. Currently Postdoctoral Researcher at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Abraham Mercado, Undergraduate Researcher, 04/2021-09/2021
Adam Asher, Undergraduate Researcher, 04/2021-08/2021
Liming Zhao, MSc, 06/2020. Currently Ph.D. student in School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Cornell University
Syamal Praneeth Chilakalapudi, Visiting PhD Student, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Germany
Sicong Ma, Undergraduate Researcher, 03/2020-09/2020
Dr. Pengfei Wang, Visiting Scholar, 10/2019-03/2021, Department of Modern Mechanics, University of Science and Technology of China