People

Pedro M. Reis
Principal Investigator
Full Professor

Email: [email protected]
Office: MED 0 1226
Phone: +41 21 693 71 18

Pedro Miguel Reis is a Full Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), where he moved to on November 1st, 2017. His research group, the Flexible Structures Laboratory, is dedicated to the fundamental understanding of the mechanics of slender structures and their intrinsic geometric nonlinearities.

Prof. Reis received a B.Sc. in Physics from the University of Manchester, UK (1999), a Certificate of Advanced Studies in Mathematics (Part III Maths) from St. John’s College and DAMTP, University of Cambridge (2000) and a Ph.D. in physics from the University of Manchester (2004). He then moved as a Post-Doc at the City College of New York (2004-2005). Between 2005 and 2007 he was a CNRS Post-Doc at the ESPCI in Paris. He joined MIT in 2007 as an Instructor in Applied Mathematics in the Department of Mathematics. In 2010 he moved to MIT’s School of Engineering, with dual appointments in Mechanical Engineering and Civil & Environmental Engineering, first as the Esther and Harold E. Edgerton Assistant Professor and, since the summer of 2014 as Gilbert W. Winslow Associate Professor. In October 2013, the Popular Science magazine named Prof. Reis to its 2013 “Brilliant 10” list of young stars in Science and Technology. He has also received the 2014 CAREER Award (NSF), the 2016 Thomas J.R. Hughes Young Investigator Award (Applied Mechanics Division of the ASME), the 2016 GSOFT Early Career Award for Soft Matter Research (APS) and he is a Fellow of the APS.

When not playing with slender structures, Prof. Reis spends his time being silly with his twins and enjoying the Swiss Alps.

A more detailed Curriculum Vitae can be found here.

Dong Yan
Postdoctoral Associate

Email: [email protected]
Website: Dong Yan
Office: MED 0 1526
Phone: +41 21 693 27 81

Dong is a Post-Doc at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) starting from November 1st, 2017. Dong got his B.Sc. in Theoretical and Applied Mechanics at Beijing Institute of Technology (BIT) in China in 2010. He completed his doctoral work focusing on the wrinkling of thin films in Micromechanics Research Group at BIT under the supervision of Gengkai Hu and Kai Zhang and got his Ph.D. in Mechanics in 2017. Dong is interested in the mechanics of slender structures, soft materials and structures, and metamaterials and metastructures. His current research at the fleXLab mainly focuses on the buckling of shells.

Dong likes traveling, playing badminton and running in his spare time.

Paul Johanns
Ph.D. Graduate Student

Email: [email protected]
Website: Paul Johanns
Office: MED 0 1326
Phone: +41 21 693 38 94

Paul Johanns is a Ph.D. student at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), starting from April 1st, 2018. He got his B.Sc. and M.Sc. both in Mechanical Engineering from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETH Zurich) in 2016 and 2017, respectively. Paul performed his Master Thesis in Prof. Chiara Daraio’s lab at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) working on tensegrity-inspired structures for impact protection. His research at EPFL’s fleXLab focuses on the fundamental understanding of the topological influence on the mechanics of complex knots, and is supported by the Fonds National de la Recherche, Luxembourg 12439430.

Paul likes to play music – trumpet and organ – and to go scuba diving in his free time.

Arefeh Abbasi
Ph.D. Graduate Student

Email: [email protected]
Website: Arefeh Abbasi
Office: MED 0 1626
Phone: +41 21 693 82 49

Arefeh Abbasi is a Ph.D. student at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), where she moved to on February 15th, 2019. Arefeh got her B.Sc. in Mechanical Engineering (Solid Mechanics) from Shiraz University, Iran, in 2014, and her M.Sc. in Mechanical Engineering (Applied Design) from Shiraz University of Technology, Iran, in 2017. During her graduate study in Iran, she worked on finite element analysis of plates, shells, and smart structures. Now, her area of interest at the fleXLab focuses on the buckling of shells.

In her free time, Arefeh enjoys cooking, biking and traveling.

Fani Derveni
Postdoctoral Associate

Email: [email protected]
Website: Fani Derveni
Office: MED 0 1326
Phone: +41 21 693 38 94

Fani is a Post-Doc at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), where she moved to on June 1st, 2021. She obtained her Diploma (5-year degree) in Civil Engineering from Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece (2017), and she spent six months studying at Cracow University of Technology, Poland. Fani completed her M.S. and Ph.D. studies in Structural Engineering and Mechanics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, US (2019 and 2021, respectively), focusing on the mechanics of thin-walled metallic structures: from plate-lattice architected materials to cold-formed steel shear walls. At EPFL’s fleXLab, she is mainly interested in shell buckling.

When she is not in the lab, Fani enjoys traveling, running and hiking.

Michael Gomez
Postdoctoral Associate

Email: [email protected]
Website: Michael Gomez
Office: MED 0 1626
Phone: +41 21 693 82 49

Michael is a Post-Doc at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), having joined in August 2021. He completed a BA in Mathematics at Christ Church, University of Oxford in 2013, followed by a MSc in Mathematical Modelling and Scientific Computing in 2014. Michael then moved to Pembroke College, Oxford where he completed a DPhil in Mathematics in 2018, supervised by Dominic Vella and Derek E. Moulton. He was also an awardee of the EPSRC Doctoral Prize scheme for six months based in the Mathematical Institute, Oxford. Prior to joining the fleXLab, Michael was a Research Fellow at Peterhouse, University of Cambridge between 2018-2021, where he was a member of the Biological Physics and Mechanics research group in the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics (DAMTP). Michael’s main interest is in elastic instabilities and the dynamics of slender elastic structures. His PhD research was dedicated to ‘snap-through’ instabilities; other projects he worked on in Oxford include the behaviour of spherical shells under point indentation and electrostatic ‘pull-in’ instabilities in microelectromechanical systems (MEMS). More recently, Michael has studied the role played by elastic instabilities in biological contexts such as bacterial locomotion. His current research at the fleXLab focusses on developing reduced-order descriptions of slender objects (rods, plates, or shells) with complex internal structure.

In his free time, Michael enjoys walking, fantasy literature and checking how many views his cat video has on YouTube.

Eduardo Gutiérrez Prieto
Ph.D. Graduate Student

Email: [email protected]
Website: Eduardo Gutiérrez Prieto
Office: MED 0 1526
Phone: +41 21 693 27 81

Eduardo is a Ph.D. student at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), starting from October 1st, 2021. He got his B.Sc. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Valladolid. He then worked for a year and a half for the company SEADM, developing a device to determine the size and count the number of nanoparticles emitted by combustion engines. He then moved to the Netherlands, to TU Delft, to pursue an M.Sc. in Mechanical Engineering specializing in fluid mechanics. During his master thesis under Prof. Daniel Tam supervision, he developed a mechanical model to explain how the beating of eukaryotic cilia and flagella naturally emerges from the internal structure. His research at fleXLab focuses on the exploitation of flexible materials properties to develop tools for fluids control.

When not in the lab, Eduardo continues experimenting -but culinarily- in his kitchen, and enjoys doing any kind of outdoors sport -especially if it rains.

Luna Lin
Postdoctoral Associate

Email: [email protected]
Website: Luna Lin
Office: MED 0 1526
Phone: +41 21 693 27 81

Luna is a Post-Doc at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), starting on November 1st, 2021. She received her B. A. in physics from Barnard College of Columbia University, in 2015. In 2021, she received her Ph. D. in applied mathematics, supervised by Prof. Chris Rycroft, from the Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences at Harvard University. During her Ph. D. studies, she modeled and developed numerical methods for a wide range of systems, including fluid—structure interactions between highly deformable solid structures and incompressible fluid, and bacterial competitions facilitated by subcellular nanostructures that directly inject toxin to kill neighboring cells. From 2016 to 2020, she was a fellow of the Department of Energy Computational Science Graduate Fellowship, which allowed her to research in high performance computing numerical methods at the Berkeley National Lab, supervised by Dr. Ann Almgren. She was also a graduate fellow of the Harvard Quantitative Biology Initiative from 2020 to 2021. Now at fleXLab, she is interested in using experimental approaches to investigate the functions of porous, elastic, slender structures in locomotion such as flying and swimming.

Outside of the lab, Luna enjoys being outdoors, petting animals, reading a good book, and playing ukulele.

Noelia Simone
Administrative Specialist

Email: [email protected]
Website: Noelia Simone
Office: MED 0 1726
Phone: +41 21 693 57 26

Noelia is the Administrative Assistant of the Flexible Structures Laboratory at EPFL. From 2016 to 2020, she also managed the administrative and finance coordination part of an H2020 European project with Prof. A. Radenovic (EPFL STI IBI-STI LBEN). In March 2020, she joined the management of the Institute of Mechanical Engineering. In 2014, and after her Commercial Business apprenticeship at EPFL (EPFL SB ISIC LCOM), Noelia received her Federal Certificate of Proficiency (CFC) in Commercial Business. In 2020, she received her Federal Diploma of Higher Education (brevet fédéral) of Executive Assistant. She also got the chance to work in the private domain, for the startup Abionic.

Apart from her varied and exciting job, Noelia loves traveling and would dream to travel around the World.

Alumni from the fleXLab

Samuel Poincloux
Postdoctoral Associate at the fleXLab, EPFL (2019-2021)
Now: JSPS postdoctoral fellow at the University of Tokyo

Paul Grandgeorge
Postdoctoral Associate at the fleXLab, EPFL (2018-2021)
Now: Postdoctoral Associate, University of Washington, US

Tian Chen
Postdoctoral Associate at the fleXLab, EPFL (2019-2021)
Now: Assistant Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Houston, US

Tomohiko Sano
Postdoctoral Associate at the fleXLab, EPFL (2019-2021)
Now: Junior Associate Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Keio University, Japan

Pierre Leroy-Calatayud
Master’s Thesis Student (2019-2020) and Research Assistant, Master Valorization Program at the fleXLab, EPFL (2020-2021)

Armelle Keiser
Postdoctoral Associate at the fleXLab, EPFL (2019-2020)
Now: Engineer at CEA Grenoble, France

Matteo Pezzulla
Postdoctoral Associate at the fleXLab, EPFL (2017-2020)
Now: Assistant Professor in the Department of Engineering, Aarhus University, Denmark

Changyeob Baek
Visiting Ph.D. Graduate Student at the fleXLab, EPFL (2018, 2019 and 2020)
Now: George Carrier Fellow in Applied Mathematics, Harvard University, Boston, US

Caroline Gay
Student internship at the fleXLab, EPFL (2019)
Now: Master’s student at ESPCI Paris, France

Lilian Cruveiller
Student internship at the fleXLab, EPFL (2019)
Now: Master’s student at Ecole Polytechnique (Palaiseau, France)

Anna Lee
Postdoc at the fleXLab, EPFL (2018)
Now: Assistant Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Pohang University of Science and Technology, Korea

Benjamin Rahm
Master’s Project Student at the fleXLab, EPFL (2018)

Mazen Al Achkar
Master’s Project Student at the fleXLab, EPFL (2018)

Mark Guttag
Postdoc at the fleXLab, EPFL (2018)
Now: Exponent, Boston, US

Tomohiko Sano
Visiting Postdoc at the fleXLab, EPFL (2018)
Now: Postdoc at the fleXLab, EPFL

Bartosz Kaczmarski 
Visiting Undergraduate Student at the fleXLab, EPFL (2018)
Now: Undergraduate Student at Princeton University, US

Alumni from the EGS.Lab (our former home at MIT)

Changyeob Baek
Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering at the EGS.Lab, MIT (2015-2020)
Thesis title: “Geometry-driven Filamentary Structures: Elastic Gridshells, Weaves, Clasps, and Knots”
Now: George Carrier Fellow in Applied Mathematics, Harvard University, Boston, US

Mark Guttag
Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering at the EGS.Lab, MIT (2014-2017)
Thesis title: “Aerodynamic Drag on Deformable and Active Structures in High Reynolds Number Conditions”
Now: Exponent, Boston, US

Anna Lee
Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering at the EGS.Lab, MIT (2014-2017)
Thesis title: “Fabrication and Buckling of Thin Spherical Shells Containing Precise Geometric Imperfections”
Now: Assistant Professor in Department of Mechanical Engineering, Pohang University of Science and Technology, Korea

Joel Marthelot
Postdoc at the EGS.Lab, MIT (2014-2017)
Visiting Graduate Student at the EGS.Lab, MIT (Spring 2010, Master 2 from Université Pierre et Marie Curie, Paris, France)
Now: Postdoc at the LE.Lab, Princeton University

Francisco López Jiménez
Postdoc at the EGS.Lab, MIT (2013-2016)
Now: Assistant Professor in Ann and H.J. Smead Aerospace Engineering Sciences, University of Colorado Boulder

Hussain Karimi
Postdoc at the EGS.Lab, MIT (2015-2017)

Grace Goon
M.Sc. in Aeronautics and Astronautics at the EGS.Lab, MIT (2012-2017)
Now: Ph.D. student at MIT

Elizabeth (Liz) Strong
M.Sc. in Mechanical Engineering at the EGS.Lab, MIT (2015-2017)
Now: Ph.D. student at University of Colorado Boulder

Rashed Al-Rashed
M.Sc. in Mechanical Engineering at the EGS.Lab, MIT (2015-2017)
Now: Ph.D. student at MIT

Claudio Falcon
Visiting Professor at the EGS.Lab, MIT (2015-2017)
Now: Associate Professor in Departamento de Fisica, Faculdad de Ciencias Fisicas y Matematicas, Universidad de Chile

Latoya Oliver
Administrative Assistant at the EGS.Lab, MIT (2016-2017)

M. Khalid Jawed
Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering at the EGS.Lab, MIT (2012-2016)
Thesis title: “Geometrically Nonlinear Configurations in Rod-Like Structures”
Now: Assistant Professor in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, University of California, Los Angeles

Laelia Kim-Lan Vaulot
M.Eng. in Civil & Environmental Engineering at the EGS.Lab, MIT (2015-2016)
Thesis title: “Form Finding in Elastic Gridshells”
Now: Graduate student at Yale University

Connor McMahan
Undergraduate Student and superUROP at the EGS.Lab, MIT (2015-2016)
Thesis title: “Form Finding in Elastic Gridshells”
Now: Graduate student at Caltech

Rebecca Fowler
Administrative Assistant at the EGS.Lab, MIT (2014-2016)

Connor Mulcahy
M.S. in Mechanical Engineering at the EGS.Lab, MIT (2013-2015)
Thesis title: “Rotation of a Slender Rod Injected into a Cylindrical Constraint”
Now: Boston Scientific

Noor Khouri
Undergraduate Student, UROP at the EGS.Lab, MIT (2013-2015)
MIT Class of 2015 (Course 1: Civil & Environment Engineering)

Ryan McDermott
Undergraduate Student, UROP at the EGS.Lab, MIT (2014-2015)
MIT Class of 2015 (Course 2: Mechanical Engineering).
Now: Design Engineer at Daily Thermetrics (Houston, TX)

Alice Nasto
M.Sc. Student at the EGS.Lab, MIT (2011-2014)
Now: Ph.D. student at MIT

Marie Rice
Undergraduate Student, UROP at the EGS.Lab, MIT (2013-2014)
Now: Ph.D. student at University of Michigan

Peter Dieleman
Visiting Graduate Student at the EGS.Lab, MIT (2014)
Now: Ph.D. student at Leiden University, Netherlands

Sharon Lacey
Administrative Assistant at the EGS.Lab, MIT (2012-2014)
Now: Writer at MIT’s Center for Arts, Science & Technology, MIT

Romain Lagrange
Instructor in Applied Mathematics, MIT (2012-2014)
Now: Researcher at CEA, France

James Miller
Ph.D. in Civil & Environmental Engineering at the EGS.Lab, MIT (2010-2013)
Now: Research Scientist, Schlumberger Doll Research, Cambridge, USA

Denis Terwagne
Postdoc at the EGS.Lab, MIT (2011-2013)
Now: Assistant Professor, Department of Physics, Université Libre de Bruxelles

Joao Lopes
Sabbatical visit at the EGS.Lab, MIT (2013)
Now: Structural Engineer CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research)

Amy McGuire
Administrative Assistant at the EGS.Lab, MIT (2011-2013)
Now: Renewable Energy Project Coordinator Massachusetts Department of Energy Resources

Tianxiang Su
Postdoc at the EGS.Lab, MIT (2011-2013)
Now: Research Scientist, Schlumberger Doll Research, Cambridge, USA

Arnaud Lazarus
Postdoc at the EGS.Lab, MIT (2010-2013)
Now: Assistant Professor at the Institut Jean Le Rond d’Alembert, Université Pierre et Marie Curie, Paris, France

Miha Brojan
Post-doc and Fullbright Fellow at the EGS.Lab, MIT (2011-2013)
Now: Lecturer at the University of Ljubljana, Slovenia

Adrien Bresson
Visiting Graduate Student at the EGS.Lab, MIT (Spring 2013)

Carmen Castanos
Undergraduate Student, UROP at the EGS.Lab, MIT (Spring 2013)
MIT Class of 2015 (Course 1: Civil and Environmental Engineering)
Now: Graduate student at MIT

Matthew Santer
Sabbatical visit at the EGS.Lab, MIT (2012-2013)
MIT Class of 2015 (Course 1: Civil and Environmental Engineering)
Now: Senior Lecturer in the Department of Aeronautics, Imperial College London, UK

Matt Metlitz
Undergraduate Student, UROP at the EGS.Lab, MIT (2012)
MIT Class of 2014 (Course 2: Mechanical Engineering)

Sarah Southerland
Undergraduate Student, UROP at the EGS.Lab, MIT (2012)
MIT Class of 2013 (Course 2: Mechanical Engineering and Course 4: Architecture)

Tommy Tran
High-School Student Intern at the EGS.Lab, MIT (Summer 2012). Malden High School (2012), Summer Internship in partnership with Summer Search Boston and NSF

Nicolas Bravo
Undergraduate Student, UROP at the EGS.Lab, MIT (Spring 2012)
MIT Class of 2015 (Course 2: Mechanical Engineering)

Miho Kitagawa
Undergraduate Student, UROP at the EGS.Lab, MIT (Spring 2012)
MIT Class of 2014 (Course 2A: Mechanical Engineering)

Breanna Berry
Undergraduate Student, UROP at the EGS.Lab, MIT (Summer, Fall 2011)
MIT Class of 2012 (Course 2: Mechanical Engineering)

Bastiaan Florijn
Visiting Graduate Student at the EGS.Lab, MIT (Spring 2011)
Master 2 Leiden University, Netherlands

Aurelie Fargette
Visiting Graduate Student at the EGS.Lab, MIT (Spring 2011)
Master 1 from École Normale Supérieure, Paris, France

Jibo Wen
Undergraduate Student, UROP at the EGS.Lab, MIT (Spring 2011)
MIT Class of 2013 (Course 1: Civil & Environmental Engineering)

Joséphine Mannent
Visiting Graduate Student at the EGS.Lab, MIT (Fall 2010)
École des Mines de Paris, France

Claude Perdigou
Visiting Graduate Student at the EGS.Lab, MIT (Spring 2010)
Master 1 from École Normale Supérieure, Paris, France

Owusu Ansah
Undergraduate UROP at the EGS.Lab, MIT (Spring 2010)

Trevor Shannon
Undergraduate UROP at the EGS.Lab, MIT (Spring 2010)