Laurent Capolungo, an award-winning researcher with a focus on structural mechanics modeling of materials under extreme environments, is joining the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering (MAE) this fall as a tenured professor.
Capolungo arrives at the University of Tennessee after spending the last 10 years as a scientist and team leader at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), where he built a large research group with annual expenditures of more than $10 million. Capolungo was recently awarded a Genesis Mission funding grant by the U.S. Department of Energy to help develop AI-enabled scientific workflows designed to accelerate breakthroughs in energy, discovery science, and national security.
“I am very excited to join the UT faculty. I think the university is doing a great job investing in science and technology. There’s a lot of large-scale initiatives that are attractive to me,” Capolungo said. “Everyone I met with at UT is in unison about the strategy to increase the impact of the university at a national level. I could tell the management team has a vision that is aligned and that’s appealing.”
Capolungo received his bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from ENSIETA in France, and his master’s degree in materials science from the Universite de Bretagne in France. He obtained two PhDs in mechanical engineering from the Universite de Lorraine in 2006 and from the Georgia Institute of Technology in 2007.
Capolungo began his academic career as an assistant professor of mechanical engineering at Georgia Tech in 2010 and was promoted to tenured associate professor in 2015. Capolungo moved to LANL in 2016 as a strategic hire.
After a decade at LANL, Capolungo felt a strong pull to return to a college campus.
“I wanted to go back specifically because it is a unique time with the deep penetration of AI into the classrooms and the knowledge I have related to national-level initiatives that are important for society associated with energy security specifically,” Capolungo said. “I felt that it was the time for me to go back to academia and try to essentially help with the next generation of students.”
I am very excited to join the UT faculty. I think the university is doing a great job investing in science and technology. There’s a lot of large-scale initiatives that are attractive to me. Everyone I met with at UT is in unison about the strategy to increase the impact of the university at a national level.
Laurent Capolungo
ProfessorDepartment of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
Collaboratory Mindset
Given the current climate, Capolungo believes the societal need of his research expertise is more essential than ever.
“With the entrance of AI into the market, and with overall growing energy demands, we need to come up with new technologies to produce electricity in a safe, economic, and autonomous fashion in the United States,” he said. “All of the nuclear energy production technologies that we’re trying to develop, they entail subjecting new or existing materials to conditions that we have not been able to expose the materials to very much, or altogether not at all. What that means is that we need to have people that understand how materials respond to extreme environment.”
Capolungo thrives on collaboration and wants to contribute to the community within the Tickle College of Engineering that is responsive to national-level initiatives. His addition to the faculty will provide a needed computational modeling perspective to the strength of research in nuclear engineering, materials science, and MAE.
“I’m one of those people that likes to build large-scale teams. I like to promote cross-disciplinary research,” Capolungo said. “So, the hope is to lead large-scale initiatives working with the faculty members at UT, particularly related to materials subjected to extreme environments.”
Capolungo received the 2024 TMS Brimacombe medalist award for mid-career researchers with sustained excellence in materials science and engineering, and the 2018 International Journal of Plasticity Young Researcher award. He has published more than 160 peer-reviewed journal articles and developed several scientific computer codes.
“I’m at the stage in my career where, out of all the things I have done, I am proudest of the success of my students,” Capolungo said. “A lot of my students and postdocs are now leaders in in industry in high tech-companies. I don’t tend to produce the Excel-sheet type engineers. I tend to help mentor the next generation of engineers and scientists that will work on very advanced technologies.”
Contact
Rhiannon Potkey ([email protected])