Reza Mirzaeifar, associate professor of mechanical engineering and director of the Future Materials Laboratory in the College of Engineering at Virginia Tech, has been awarded the John R. Jones III Faculty Fellowship in Mechanical Engineering by the Virginia Tech Board of Visitors.

The Jones Faculty Fellowship was established in 2006 to acknowledge and reward mid-career faculty who have shown exceptional merit in research, teaching, and/or service. Jones, a member of the Class of 1967 who earned his bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering, is a retired executive of American Electric Power. He has served as a member of the Department of Mechanical Engineering Advisory Board.

Recipients hold the title of Jones Faculty Fellow for a period of five years.

A member of the Virginia Tech faculty since 2014, Mirzaeifar has a notable record of conducting cutting-edge research in the area of advanced materials, including metal-graphene composites, 3D printed alloys, thin films, and shape memory alloys/polymers with particular emphasis on studying the mechanical behavior of these materials at nano, micro, and macroscales. His research team has produced one book chapter, 65 papers in prestigious journals, and 46 conference papers so far.

Mirzaeifar has received $2.6 million in research funding from a diverse group of agencies including the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, National Science Foundation, Office of Naval Research, Department of Energy, ONR-Defense University Research Instrumentation Program, Honeywell, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and the Association of American Railroads through Railway Technologies Laboratory. His personal share is approximately $2.08 million.

Among his grants is an Air Force Office of Scientific Research Young Investigator Program Award, in which he was one of the 45 winners from a pool of 280 applicants. In a Department of Energy project, he is the single principal investigator from Virginia Tech and in that role works with a large consortium comprising more than a dozen members from universities, national labs, and industrial companies. The overall award to the consortium is approximately $11 million, the third largest project funded in 2020 by the Department of Engergy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy.

Mirzaeifar received his bachelor’s degree from the University of Kerman, a master’s degree from Tehran Polytechnic, a Ph.D. from the Georgia Institute of Technology, and has been a postdoctoral associate in MIT before joining Virginia Tech.

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