Assistant Professor and David C. Crawford Faculty Scholar X. Shelly Zhang has been selected as the recipient of the 2025 Thomas J. R. Hughes Young Investigator Award of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME).
The award, one of the most prestigious young investigator honors, is selected by the ASME Applied Mechanics Division (AMD). It was established in 1998 and renamed the Thomas J. R. Hughes Young Investigator Award in 2008 and recognizes only one young researcher per year for special achievements in applied mechanics. In selecting Zhang, AMD used the following citation:
“For contributions to inverse design methods, mechanics, and fabrication strategies to discover programmable materials and structures with multiphysics interactions.”
This recognition adds to the growing list of accolades Zhang has received in the last year for her innovative work in multi-functional structures design. In March 2024 she was again recognized as an outstanding young investigator, receiving the EMI Leonardo da Vinci Award from the Engineering Mechanics Institute of the American Society of Civil Engineers for engineers early in their careers who have made promising ground-breaking developments in the field of Engineering Mechanics and Mechanical Sciences. Zhang was cited “for important contributions to novel multi-physics topology optimization methods and fabrication strategies for highly multi-functional structures with programmable behaviors, and for translating practice.”
In August 2024, Zhang again received recognition for her research and as a top performer in the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency Young Faculty Award (YFA) pool, receiving the selective (DARPA) Director's Fellowship Award. As a recipient of the Director’s Fellowship, she received an additional third year of funding to continue her DARPA research.
Zhang was awarded a grant in November 2024 by the National Science Foundation (NSF) to support her work in metamaterials optimization. This project is a collaboration with Professor Stefano Gonella from the University of Minnesota; it aims to understand and design a new class of topological metamaterials with special surface and wave properties that can be programmed to display various levels of softness and rigidity, allowing them to manage intelligently the loads/impact applied by the outside environment.
Zhang says the project will include designing some very unique structures for applications such as tires for space vehicles or for operating in hazardous environments, as well as protective equipment that can sustain impacts from projectiles, and soft robotic devices with sensing capabilities. She had previously worked on another innovative materials project that developed a new composite material designed to change behaviors depending on temperature in order to perform specific tasks. These materials are poised to be part of the next generation of autonomous robotics that will interact with the environment.
Joining the CEE faculty in 2018, Zhang is also an alumna of CEE at Illinois, having earned her bachelor’s (2012) and master’s (2014) degrees in the department. Zhang is affiliated with the Department of Mechanical Science and Engineering and the National Center for Supercomputing Applications. Her research interests are in the general areas of topology optimization, stochastic programming, machine learning, multi-scale metamaterials, additive manufacturing and 3D/4D printing. She directs the MISSION Laboratory (MultI-functional Structures and Systems desIgn OptimizatioN), which focuses on exploring topology optimization, stochastic programming, and additive manufacturing to develop multi-functional, resilient, sustainable, and innovative engineering infrastructure and materials for applications at different scales, from as large as high-rise buildings to as small as material microstructures.
The Thomas J. R. Hughes Young Investigator Award will be presented to Zhang in November 2025 at the AMD Banquet during the 2025 ASME International Mechanical Engineering Congress and Exposition, to be held in Memphis, Tennessee.