James K. Guest, a professor and the head of the Department of Civil and Systems Engineering, is an internationally recognized leader in the field of topology optimization (a mathematical approach to design that optimizes material layout within a given space). He holds a secondary appointment in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering. He also serves as the associate director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Additive Manufacturing and Architected Materials (JAM2) and the Center for Integrated Structure-Materials Modeling and Simulation (CISMMS).
Guest’s research focuses on topology optimization, an approach for automating and enabling discovery in computational design processes. His group develops algorithms for the design of structures, devices and architected materials for use in infrastructure, mechanical, biomedical, and aerospace applications. He has received a number of awards, including the Engineering Mechanics Institute Leonardo da Vinci award and the American Society of Civil Engineers Walter L. Huber Research Prize.
Sponsors of his research have included the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-e), the Army Research Laboratory, the Office of Naval Research, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), and the National Science Foundation, as well as industry.
Guest is currently serving as past secretary-general for the International Society for Structural and Multidisciplinary Optimization, and is a past chair of the technical committee on Optimal Structural Design for the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) Structural Engineering Institute. He also is a member of the Computational Mechanics Committee of the ASCE Engineering Mechanics Institute (EMI), and a member of the Design Automation Committee of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME). He is on the editorial board of the journals Structural and Multidisciplinary Optimization and Computer Methods in Applied Mechanics and Engineering, and a reviewer for more than 30 technical journals.
Guest received his bachelor’s degree in civil engineering systems from the University of Pennsylvania in 1998. He then studied at Princeton University, where he received a master’s degree in civil engineering and operations research in 2001, a master’s degree in civil and environmental engineering in 2002, and a PhD in civil and environmental engineering in 2005. He joined the Whiting School of Engineering faculty in 2005.