PhD candidate awarded NSF grant for summer internship
PhD candidate Ali Davari was awarded a National Science Foundation (NSF) grant to attend a two-week long summer internship at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor.
The “Summer School for Integrated Computational Materials Education” included a “crash course” on computational materials science and engineering (CMSE), and focused sessions on educational modules adoptable into existing core courses. It included tools into undergraduate-level thermodynamics, kinetics, material physics, and mechanical behavior courses. The course was developed to address the need for the integration of computational techniques into undergraduate MSE curricula.
“We also had sessions for improving our teaching skills,” said Davari, who also works as a teaching assistant. “It was extremely helpful for me. I will be a better teacher at UIC.”
Davari is studying for his doctorate in materials engineering under the direction of Sara Kadkhodaei, an assistant professor in civil and materials engineering at UIC, in the Computational Materials Research Laboratory.
He earned his undergraduate degree in Chemical Engineering at the University of Tehran, and graduated with a master’s degree in Chemical Engineering from Drexel University with a minor in Computer Science.
Having developed a strong background in scientific computing and atomic level simulations, he joined Kadkhodaei’s research group at UIC.
Learn more about his work with Kadkhodaei at https://cmrl.lab.uic.edu.