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About the lab
The Multiphysics Mechanics of Materials Lab at the University of Colorado Boulder, led by Dr. Maryam Shakiba, develops predictive approaches to understand and design resilient materials for complex and extreme environments. We investigate how coupled chemical, thermal, radiation, and mechanical processes drive material evolution, degradation, and failure across scales. By integrating multiphysics and multiscale modeling, experimental characterization, and physics-informed AI, we link composition and microstructure to long-term performance and accelerate materials design. Our work spans aerospace and infrastructure materials, with particular emphasis on their durability under the harshest conditions, from oxidation and atomic-oxygen exposure in low-Earth orbit to the thermo-chemo-mechanical loads of atmospheric re-entry.
Recent highlights
2026 · New paper in Extreme Mechanics Letters: “Aging-invariant fractocohesive length in thermally aged elastomers.”
2026 · Dr. Shakiba receives the Smead Aerospace Faculty Performance Award for Outstanding Junior Faculty.
2025 · Marwa Yacouti receives the AIAA John Leland Atwood Graduate Award.
2025 · Work on thermo-oxidative aging of polyimide films featured on spectroscopyonline.com.
