Professor Yan Li

Dartmouth engineering professor Yan Li has received the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) ORR Early Career Award, which recognizes early career research excellence in the areas of experimental, computational, or theoretical fatigue, fracture, or creep.

Li’s research focuses on the mechanics of advanced materials and involves multiscale, multi-physics modeling. Li taps integrated computational and experimental approaches to develop next-generation material design.

“I am deeply honored to receive this prestigious award from ASME,” said Li. “This vibrant community has provided me an invaluable opportunity to advance my career by leveraging my expertise through research, educational and synergistic activities. I am excited to expand my research scope to diverse engineering disciplines that will impact the future of materials science, engineering, and technology.”

She was selected for “pioneering an approach to predict the fracture toughness of ceramic composites and polycrystalline metals with statistical uncertainty quantification using microstructure-explicit and fracture-process-explicit computation simulations, advancing approaches for design of fracture resistant materials and microstructures.”

After receiving her BS in mechanical engineering from Yanshan University in China, Li received her MS in material science engineering from Shanghai Jiao Tong University and her PhD in mechanical engineering from Georgia Institute of Technology. She has worked on research projects supported by the US Army Research Laboratory, Sandia National Laboratories, NSF Center for Computational Materials Design, and collaborated with industry partners including Boeing, Gulfstream, and GE.

Established in 2004, the ASME ORR Early Career Award was donated by the Orr family and consists of a $3,000 honorarium and certificate that will be presented virtually at the 2020 ASME International Mechanical Engineering Congress & Exposition in November.