Stavros Gaitanaros Joins Civil Engineering Department as Assistant Professor

The Department of Civil Engineering is pleased to welcome Stavros Gaitanaros, who recently joined the department as an Assistant Professor.

Stavros received his PhD in Engineering Mechanics from the University of Texas at Austin in 2014 working at the Center for Mechanics of Solids, Structures and Materials. Since then, he has worked as a Postdoctoral Associate in the Laboratory for Computational Biology and Biophysics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Prior to that, he served as an Assistant Instructor in the Department of Aerospace Engineering and Engineering Mechanics at the University of Texas at Austin. Stavros received his Diploma and M.Sc. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Thessaly working in the Systems Dynamics Laboratory.

His research focuses on the integration of physics-based modeling with characterization and experimental data to study the design and mechanics of lightweight cellular materials. He is particularly interested in studying large deformations, instabilities, shocks and energy absorption under impact. His recent research efforts include the mechanical properties of programmed nanostructures made of self-assembling DNA strands.

His work has earned him several accolades, including a 3^rd place award for a Best Student Paper by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers in 2012.

Stavros is also a faculty member within the Hopkins Extreme Materials Institute.