R. Edwin Garcia is a Professor of Materials Engineering at

Purdue University Purdue University is a public land-grant research university in West Lafayette, Indiana, and the flagship campus of the Purdue University system. The university was founded in 1869 after Lafayette businessman John Purdue donated land and money ...

. Garcia's research group focuses on the design of materials and devices through the development of a fundamental understanding of the

solid state physics Solid-state physics is the study of rigid matter, or solids, through methods such as quantum mechanics, crystallography, electromagnetism, and metallurgy. It is the largest branch of condensed matter physics. Solid-state physics studies how the l ...

of the individual phases, their short and long range interactions, and its associated microstructural evolution.

Education

* B.S., 1996,

National University of Mexico The National Autonomous University of Mexico ( es, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, UNAM) is a public research university in Mexico. It is consistently ranked as one of the best universities in Latin America, where it's also the bigges ...

, physics * M.S., 2000,

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the ...

, materials science and engineering * PhD., 2003, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, materials science and engineering with a minor in

applied mathematics Applied mathematics is the application of mathematical methods by different fields such as physics, engineering, medicine, biology, finance, business, computer science, and industry. Thus, applied mathematics is a combination of mathematical s ...

Research interests

Materials are selected to meet the requirements of specific technological applications. Their response depends on the underlying thermodynamic and kinetic properties as well as the inherent microstructural features. In particular, microstructure depends on the applied processing techniques and starting materials, and in many cases macroscopic properties are linked to microstructure. Thus, understanding the effect of microstructure on the time evolution, response, and reliability of material properties is important. Garcia is interested in the application of theoretical and computational materials science to understand the relations between material properties and microstructure. Garcia's research places special emphasis on establishing analytical descriptions of complex processes and on the development of numerical algorithms and codes when microstructural simulation is required. Garcia is also interested in developing the means to optimize materials through fundamental understanding and graphical representation of the relations between processing, structure, and properties.

Professional impact

Garcia is a contributor of contributions on nanoHUB.org, serving over 1,600 users as of April 2013. In addition, Garcia is involved with the nanoHUB-U Initiative to provide free online courses in nanotechnology, pioneered by

Mark Lundstrom Mark S. Lundstrom is an American electrical engineering researcher, educator, and author. He is known for contributions to the theory, modeling, and understanding of semiconductor devices, especially nanoscale transistors, and as the creator of th ...

Software

OOF: Finite Element Analysis of Microstructures

Garcia is a principal developer of OOF: Finite Element Analysis of Microstructures, which is public domain software designed to enable investigation of the properties of microstructures. It was developed at the US

National Institute of Standards and Technology The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is an agency of the United States Department of Commerce whose mission is to promote American innovation and industrial competitiveness. NIST's activities are organized into physical sci ...

(NIST).

VKML: The Virtual Kinetics of Materials Laboratory

The Virtual Kinetics of Materials Laboratory is a tool hosted by

nanoHUB nanoHUB.org is a science and engineering gateway comprising community-contributed resources and geared toward education, professional networking, and interactive simulation tools for nanotechnology. Funded by the United States National Science F ...

that allows users to simulate microstructural evolution models by using FiPy. VKML was developed by Alexander Bartol and R. Edwin Garcia with sponsorship from the

National Science Foundation The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent agency of the United States government that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National I ...

Gibbs

Developed by Thomas Cool, R. Edwin Garcia and Alex Bartol, Gibbs is a tool hosted by nanoHUB that enables rapid prototyping, validation, and comparison of thermodynamic models to describe the equilibrium between multiple phases for binary systems.Thomas Cool; R. Edwin Garcia; Alex Bartol (2011), "Gibbs," https://nanohub.org/resources/gibbs. (DOI: 10.4231/D30Z70W7G).

Books

"Microstructural Modeling of Multifunctional Material Properties: The OOF Project." R. Edwin García, Andrew C.E. Reid, Stephen A. Langer, and W. Craig Carter. Invited chapter in "Continuum Scale Simulation of Engineering Materials." Dierk Raabe, Franz Roters, Frédéric Barlat, Long-Qing Chen (eds.), Wiley-VCH, Weinheim. .

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Garcia, R. Edwin American materials scientists Purdue University faculty Living people Year of birth missing (living people)