He is an Anson Marston Distinguished Professor and Murray Harpole Chair in Engineering at Iowa State University[1] and was a faculty scientist at the Ames National Laboratory.
Among his authored works are his publications in academic journals, including Science, Nature Communications, Nano Letters[3] as well as monographs such as Large Deformation of Materials with Complex Rheological Properties at Normal and High Pressure.
[6][7] He pioneered the field of theoretical high-pressure mechanochemistry[8] through the development of a comprehensive four-scale theory and simulations[7] spanning from the first principle[9] and molecular dynamics[10] to nano- and microscale phase-field approaches[11][12] and macroscale treatment.
[13] His work includes coupling theoretical frameworks with quantitative in-situ experiments using synchrotron radiation facilities to investigate phase transformations and plastic flow in various materials under high pressure and large deformations.
Additionally, his research has contributed to the determination of material properties such as transformational, structural, deformational, and frictional characteristics from high throughput heterogeneous sample fields.
[14][15] His research team discovered and harnessed the phenomenon of "rotational plastic instability" to lower the required pressure for producing superhard cubic BN, reducing it from 55 to 5.6GPa.
[16] In addition, their theoretical insights enabled a reduction in the transformation pressure from graphite to diamond, dropping it from 70 to 0.7GPa through shear-induced plasticity.