Dr. Aditya Kumar is an Assistant Professor in the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Previously, he was a Postdoctoral Researcher in Aerospace Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He received his bachelor’s degree from the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, and his doctorate from Illinois.

Dr. Kumar’s main area of research is mechanics and physics of soft materials. Specifically, his research group develops mathematical theories and their computational implementation to study fundamental problems in materials like elastomers, adhesives, and biological tissues. Recent work includes the development of a fracture theory for elastomers that has been able to explain experimental observations that had puzzled scientists for decades. This work has also provided a unifying perspective on fracture in all brittle solids, soft or hard, and has led to an ongoing search for a complete theory of nucleation and propagation of fracture for all solids. Currently, his group is also working on the nonlinear mechanics of material evolution (remodeling) in biological tissues and the multi-physics modeling of 3D printing in polymers. 
 

Dr. Yu Ding is the Anderson-Interface Chair and Professor in the H. Milton School of Industrial and Systems Engineering at Georgia Tech. Prior to joining Georgia Tech in 2023, he was the Mike and Sugar Barnes Professor of Industrial and Systems Engineering at Texas A&M University. While at Texas A&M, he also served as Associate Department Head for Graduate Affairs of the Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering between 2012 and 2016 and Associate Director for Research Engagement of Texas A&M Institute of Data Science between 2020 and 2023. He received his B.S. in Precision Engineering from the University of Science and technology of China in 1993, a M.S. in Precision Engineering from Tsinghua University in 1996, a second M.S. in Mechanical from Penn State in 1998, and his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Michigan in 2001.

Dr. Ding is the author of the CRC Press book, Data Science for Wind Energy, and a co-author of the Springer Nature book, Data Science for Nano Image Analysis. Dr. Ding received the 2019 IISE Technical Innovation Award and 2022 INFORMS Impact Prize for his data science innovations impacting wind energy applications. Dr. Ding is a Fellow of IISE (2015) and ASME (2016). He has served as editor or associate editor for several major engineering data science journals, and is currently serving as the 14th Editor in Chief of IISE Transactions, for the term of 2021-2024.

Colton's research interests are in the areas of design and manufacturing, focusing on polymers and polymer composites. Processing techniques, such as micro-molding, injection molding, filament winding, resin transfer molding and the like, are studied and used to fabricate these devices and products, such as smart composite structures.

The design of processing techniques and equipment for metamaterials also are being studied with applications being dielectric materials for electromagnetic applications. Due to the small-scale physics associated with their engineering, nano-scale metamaterials exhibit superior properties and enhanced performance.

Colton has a strong passion for the application of engineering for the common good – "humanitarian design and engineering" and "design that matters," - such as in developing countries and other resource limited environments. To be successful, multidisciplinary teams must work together to produce products that function as well as delight, that exceed customer's expectations, regardless of where the product is used. Along these lines, product design and role that the interactions between engineering and industrial design forms another research interest.