James Guest, associate professor in the Department of Civil and Systems Engineering, has been appointed interim chair of that department, effective July 1. He succeeds Lori Graham-Brady, who has served as chair since 2015, and whose vision helped lead the transformation of the Department of Civil Engineering into the expanded and refocused Department of Civil and Systems Engineering in 2019.
Guest joined Johns Hopkins in 2005. He holds a secondary appointment in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, is deputy director of both the Johns Hopkins Center for Additive Manufacturing and Architected Materials (JAM2) and the Center for Integrated Structure-Materials Modeling and Simulation (CISMMS), and leads the Topology Optimization Group at Johns Hopkins.
His research focuses on developing computational topology optimization methods and algorithms for the design of architected materials, devices, and structures. He received the Walter L. Huber Research Prize from the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) and the Leonardo da Vinci Award from the Engineering Mechanics Institute (EMI) of ASCE for his pioneering work in topology optimization. He also serves in a number of professional leadership roles, including the executive committee of the International Society for Structural and Multidisciplinary Optimization, vice chair of the EMI Technical Committee on Architected Materials, and senior editorial advisor for the Journal of Structural and Multidisciplinary Optimization.