Markus J. Buehler

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Markus J. Buehler is a German-American materials scientist working in the area of multi-scale modeling of deformation and fracture of materials. He currently holds the Esther and Harold E. Edgerton Career Development Professorship at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

After undergraduate education at the University of Stuttgart, Germany in Chemical and Process Engineering, Markus Buehler received his M.S. degree in Engineering Mechanics from Michigan Technological University in 2001. From 2001 to 2004 he worked at the Max Planck Institute for Metals Research in Stuttgart under the supervision of Professor Huajian Gao, Germany as a research assistant from where he also received his Ph.D. in Chemistry.

From 2004 to 2005, he held an appointment as the Director of Multiscale Modeling and Software Integration and Postdoctoral Scholar at the Materials and Process Simulation Center at the California Institute of Technology in Professor William A. Goddard’s group. There he oversaw multi-scale method development and applications in modeling of small-scale materials phenomena.

In 2005, he joined the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) for an appointment as a Postdoctoral Associate. He assumed a faculty appointment in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering in 2006. Prof. Buehler founded MIT’s Laboratory for Atomistic and Molecular Mechanics, where his research is focused on multi-scale modeling of complex hierarchical protein materials. His current research interest is focused on collagenous tissues, bone, spider silk, amyloids, as well as the mechanics of the cell’s cytoskeleton. Overall his main interests are in the elucidation of materials science paradigms for protein materials, with particular focus on fracture and deformation. His goal is the advancement of the understanding of large hierarchical assemblies of protein structures and protein materials in biology. Prof. Buehler also works on the transfer of knowledge of materials science from biology to technological applications in the design of biomimetic materials. A particular focus of his research program at MIT was the application of fracture mechanics concepts to understand the behavior and structural concepts of proteins and protein materials. He has demonstrated these approaches in several classes of protein materials, such as alpha-helices, beta-sheets and tropocollagen molecules. He has also developed the universality-diversity-paradigm (UDP) of proteins, which provides a new analysis platform to describe the behavior of proteins and other biopolymers in the context of a broader range of properties, including the biological role, materials properties, process-structure integration and the possibility to enrich current engineering paradigms of generating structures at nanoscale.

His teaching activities at MIT are focused on engineering mechanics and modeling and simulation. He has been involved in teaching the subjects 1.021J "Introduction to Modeling and Simulation", 3.22 "Mechanical Properties of Materials", 1.978 "From nano to macro: Introduction to atomistic modeling techniques" and 1.050 "Engineering Mechanics I". Prof. Buehler collaborates with MIT’s IS&T department within the scope of the initiative "Bringing Research Tools into the Classroom", where is developing tools to enable simple use of multi-scale simulation tools in teaching and education of undergraduate and graduate students. He is also actively participating in MIT's Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (UROP), where he serves as a faculty mentor. He is also involved in MIT's Summer Research Program (MSRP) and in MIT's Center for Materials Science and Engineering (CMSE).

He is currently the associate editor of the Journal of Computational and Theoretical Nanoscience and guest editor of the Journal of Materials Science. Prof. Buehler has received several awards, including the Materials Research Society Gold Graduate Student award and the National Science Foundation CAREER award. Prof. Buehler is also an invitee to the 2007 National Academy of Engineering – Frontiers of Engineering symposium. He has given several plenary and keynote lectures, including at the 3rd International Conference on Advanced Materials and Nanotechnology (Wellington, New Zealand, 2007) and the 2nd International Conference on Mechanics of Biomaterials and Tissues (Hawaii, 2007). Prof. Buehler is a member of the Materials Research Society, the American Chemical Society, the Biophysical Society and the American Academy of Mechanics. His research has been highlighted in several journals, including the MIT Technology Review, MIT Tech talk, New Scientist, Materials Today and the MRS Bulletin.