Welcoming new faces to MatSE
Darren Pagan is an assistant professor and an associate with the Institute for Computational and Data Sciences. Prior to joining Penn State, he was a staff scientist overseeing the structural materials and mechanics program at the Cornell High Energy Synchrotron Source (CHESS). At CHESS, he oversaw the design, construction, and commissioning of the Structural Materials Beamline (SMB) and the Forming and Shaping Technology Beamline (FAST).
“I am very excited to start in the department. The rich materials research across campus and Penn State’s long history studying structural materials make the University a great place to join. I’m looking forward to contributing to this strong tradition through my research program. I focus on innovative, data-driven characterizations to design mechanically superior systems and improve the safety and economic use of existing materials systems.”
Specifically, Pagan’s research focuses on developing data analysis methods for quantifying material deformation, integrating mechanical and scattering models, and expanding experimental capabilities for characterizing microstructure evolution during processing and performance testing of metallic alloys and composites. The goal of his research is to extract quantitative measures of microstructure evolution in-situ to develop, calibrate, and validate computational models and to accelerate the design of superior material systems.
Pagan earned a B.S. in mechanical engineering from Columbia University in 2010 and his Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from Cornell University in 2016. His dissertation research focused on developing crystal kinematic and scattering models for quantifying heterogeneous plastic deformation in single crystals during thermo-mechanical loading from in-situ x-ray data. As a postdoctoral researcher at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Pagan developed new methods for integrating diffraction data with crystal plasticity finite element modeling and used x-ray techniques to characterize granular material deformation in-situ under quasi-static and dynamic loading conditions.