I was born in Geneva, Switzerland and got a BS/MS degree at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH, Zurich) in materials science in 1986. I then joined as a graduate student the Department of Materials Science and Engineering (DMSE) of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where I got my Ph.D. in 1991. After a brief postdoc in the group of my Ph.D. adviser (Prof. Andreas Mortensen, now at EPFL, Lausanne, I was hired by MIT's DMSE department as an Assistant Professor and was later promoted to Associate Professor. In 1997, I moved to Northwestern University, where I am currently Professor and co-director of the Initiative for Sustainability and Energy at Northwestern (ISEN).
My research focuses on experimental and theoretical studies of the mechanical properties of metallic alloys, composites and foams, and connection of these properties to microstructure and processing.
I also teach a variety of classes, including:
