I am a Postdoctoral Scholar in Mechanical Engineering at UC Santa Barbara, working with Prof. Irene J. Beyerlein.
My research focuses on multiscale modeling of microstructure evolution and defect mechanisms in structural materials, with particular interest in linking atomistic mechanisms to continuum-scale predictions.
- Phase-field modeling of microstructure evolution
- Molecular dynamics of defects and interfaces
- Twin boundary migration and detwinning in nanotwinned alloys
- Mechanism-informed multiscale modeling
- Defect evolution in materials under thermal and mechanical driving forces
- Data-driven and machine learning assisted materials modeling
My recent work centers on:
- Nanotwin evolution in Ni-based alloys
- Elastic-energy-coupled phase-field modeling
- ITB/CTB migration mechanisms
- MD-to-phase-field upscaling
- Surrogate machine learning models for interface mobility
I am particularly interested in building physically grounded frameworks that connect:
atomistic defect mechanisms → mesoscale microstructure evolution → materials performance
- Simulation methods: Molecular Dynamics (MD), Phase Field (PF), Crystal Plasticity (CP)
- Frameworks & software: MOOSE, LAMMPS, Python, MATLAB, ANSYS Fluent, OpenFOAM
- Programming: Python, C++, MATLAB
- Topics: FEM, thermodynamic driving forces, interface anisotropy, mobility laws, defect kinetics
- Twin boundary migration in FCC alloys
- Defect-interface interactions
- Residual stress effects in sputtered thin films
- Thermally driven detwinning
- Anisotropic interfacial energy and mobility
- Physics-informed surrogate models for accelerated prediction
- Postdoctoral Scholar, UC Santa Barbara
- Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering, University of Florida
This GitHub is where I organize and share:
- research workflows
- simulation tools
- reproducible computational pipelines
- analysis scripts
- technical tutorials for future students and collaborators
My goal is to make complex computational materials workflows cleaner, more reusable, and more reproducible.
You can highlight a few repositories here once they are public:
- Phase-field modeling tools
- ITB mobility workflow
- LAMMPS / MD analysis scripts
- Microstructure visualization and post-processing
- Reproducible multiscale modeling tutorials
- Email: yixishen@ucsb.edu
- Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=7Vplr-wAAAAJ&hl=en
- LinkedIn / personal webpage: www.linkedin.com/in/yixi-shen
I am interested in computational materials science, multiscale modeling, and the physics of defects, interfaces, and microstructure evolution.