Associate Professor Stephanie TerMaath was part of a multi-disciplinary project that received the 2026 American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) Integrated Computational Materials Engineering (ICME) Prize for groundbreaking work on adhesively bonded composite and metallic joints, which are critical for naval and aerospace applications.
The AIAA ICME Prize is a biennial award given to the best aerospace-focused ICME project. TerMaath was honored at the AIAA SciTech award ceremony in January for her work on the project, “Multi-scale ICME to Optimize the Bondline Performance of Adhesive Joints.”
“It was a great honor win such a prestigious award and for our work to be acknowledged at a premiere national event,” said TerMaath, the Jessie Rogers Zeanah Faculty Fellow in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering (MAE). “We hope this project serves as a success story of the revolutionary research that can be accomplished when researchers with disparate expertise collaborate.”
Funded by the Office of Naval Research through multiple grants, the project’s research team developed an integrated computational approach to designing adhesive joints spanning the atomic scale to part demonstration. The work showcased improved structural reliability while reducing cost and part count, moving a step closer to potentially eliminating mechanical fasteners.
The project involved multiple universities and entities, including UT, Clarkson University, Johns Hopkins University, Naval Sea Systems Command, and Southwest Research Institute.
TerMaath worked closely with co-principal investigator Marcias Martinez, a professor and chair of mechanical and aerospace engineering at Clarkson University, and Kinan Bezem, a postdoc in MAE. TerMaath and her team led the surface bonding simulation efforts while Martinez and his teamled the experimental and material characterization.
“It was the synergy between the two principal investigators and groups, which through constant communication, led to this incredible result,” Martinez said. “To me, it’s the collaboration between two groups that are not competing but complementing each other that makes this research project so worthwhile and exciting.”
Contact
Rhiannon Potkey ([email protected])