I may have one opening, depending on available funding, for a graduate research assistant (RA) to begin in September 2009 in the Mechanical Engineering Department at the University of Colorado. STRONG PREFERANCE WILL BE GIVEN TO STUDENTS WITH MS DEGREES, PARTICULARLY THOSE WITH KNOWLEDGE OF FINITE ELEMENT METHODS, SOLID MECHANICS, NANOMECHANICS, SOLID STATE PHYSICS AND ATOMISTIC MODELING. Exceptional students with BS degrees will also be considered.

Applications should be made through official channels. I welcome preliminary inquiries from interested students to see if your background is compatible with my current research directions. Interested students should send a resume and 1-2 representative publications (if available) to harold.park@colorado.edu, with the subject line of the email reading "RA position".

My current research focuses on the broad theme of using and developing both atomistic and multiscale computational models to investigate surface effects on the properties and behavior of metallic and semiconducting nanowires and NEMS. In particular, I am interested in (1) Studying how surface effects impact the mechanical behavior and properties of nanomaterials. (2) Investigating the coupled physics behavior of nanomaterials, including thermomechanical, electromechanical, and optomechanical properties.

The Mechanical Engineering department at the University of Colorado has outstanding research opportunities for students interested in nanomaterials and NEMS. The department was recently given a DARPA center on nanomaterials, and maintains excellent collaborations with researchers at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and the National Institute of Standards and Technology. Both are located within close driving distance of Boulder, which is consistently rated as one of the top 10 cities to live in the US.

BIOSKETCH: I obtained all three of my degrees (BS, MS, PhD) from the Mechanical Engineering department at Northwestern University. I have published over 25 refereed journal articles, written 1 book, and am currently the guest editor of a special issue on Recent Advances in Computational Study of Nanostructures for Computer Methods in Applied Mechanics and Engineering. I am also the recent recipient of a 2007 NSF Career award and a 2008 DARPA Young Faculty Award, both to pursue research developing multiscale modeling ideas to investigate the mechanical and optomechanical properties of nanomaterials.