David Parks

Professor David Parks graduated in Engineering Mechanics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and obtained his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees at Brown University. He was Assistant Professor in the Department of Engineering and Applied Science at Yale University for two and a half years before moving to MIT, where he is currently Professor of Mechanical Engineering. His primary interests focus on the development of accurate and tractable models of the mechanical behavior of engineering materials that are based on essential features of the material structures and mechanisms of deformation and failure in a range of materials including metals, polymers, ceramics, and composites. Recent research has centered on the mechanical behavior of graphene under extreme loading, and on solid state roll-bonding of polymer laminae via plastic deformation.