Gabriele Librandi
School of Engineering and Applied Sciences

Gabriele is currently a PhD Candidate in Materials Science and Mechanical Engineering at Harvard University in the Katia Bertoldi group. He has been involved in a number of MRSEC projects during his graduate program, and has studied the mechanical behavior of porous metamaterials. He tested and studied a method based on the image elastic charges formalism which anticipates to be quicker and more insightful than the most common Finite Elements Analysis techniques. In this project, he collaborated with Dr. Michael Moshe, a postdoctoral fellow in David Nelson's group. In an MRSEC IRG1 collaboration between the Bertoldi and Rubinstein groups, he has modeled the frictional behavior of the Kirigami skins during actuation to optimize the linear motion of the crawlers. In addition to this, he has recently started a project based on the engineered Liquid Crystal Elastomers (LCE) that is being investigated in a Center IRG2 collaboration among the Aizenberg, Bertoldi, and Lewis group to develop a Finite Elements tool for describing the mechanical response of these elastomers. His model is able to predict with high fidelity the experimental results obtained by Yuxing Yao, graduate student in the Aizenberg group. The model will be used as predictive tool to explore interesting and useful arrangements of the LCE. In addition, Gabriele is starting a project to massively exploit Machine Learning to encode two or more different deformed configurations in the same material, as a response of the different directions of loading.

He took his Bachelor of Science in Aerospace Engineering and his Master of Science in Aeronautical Engineering both from the University of Rome "La Sapienza". After these degrees came to New York University via a fellowship to get his Master of Science in Mechanical Engineering. He received a fellowship from ESA (European Space Agency) to attend the summer school organized by the International Space University in Strasbourg. Gabriele took a position at Rolls-Royce as a Structural Engineer in the Turbines Department. He spent about two years in the company working on projects like Eurofighter Typhoon, F35, and Airbus 350. After this experience, he decided to continue his studies by pursuing a PhD at Harvard University. He is a member of the American Physical Society and the New York Academy of Sciences. He is the Co-President of the Harvard Italian Student Society.