Curriculum Vitae
Education
- Ph.D. & M.S. in Mechanical Engineering, Stanford University, 2022
- M.S. in Petroleum Engineering, Stanford University, 2016
- B.S. in Chemical Engineering (Minor in Computer Science), Tsinghua University, 2013
Research Experiences
- 2023 - Present: Stanford Energy Postdoctoral Fellow
- Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Stanford University
- Supervisor: Professor Leora Dresselhaus-Marais, Professor Xiaolin Zheng
- Sustainable iron production with H2 based direct reduction
- Develop forward model for dark-field X-ray microscopy (DFXM)
- 2016 - 2022: Graduate Researcher
- Department of Mechanical Engineering, Stanford University
- Supervisor: Professor Wei Cai
- Developed a kinetic model to estimate dislocation cross-slip rate under stress, using transition-state theory and high-throughput minimum energy path (MEP) calculations.
- Studied the potential energy landscape evolution and topology under stress for metallic glass, based on high-throughput molecular dynamics (MD) simulations and MEP calculations.
- Developed a fast spherical harmonic solver ShElastic for elasticity problems, and applied to (1) void-dislocation interactions in crystalline metals; (2) particle-based force microscope for measuring stress in biological cells.
- Fall 2013 - Spring 2016: Graduate Researcher
- Department of Energy Resources Engineering, Stanford University
- Master Thesis: A Stability Criterion for the Negative Compressibility Problem in Geothermal Simulation and Discrete Modeling of Failure in Oil Shale Pyrolysis Process
Selected Publications
A complete list of publications can be found on Google Scholar.
Yifan Wang, and Wei Cai. "Stress-dependent activation entropy in thermally activated cross-slip of dislocations." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 120 (2023): e2222039120.
Kuykendall, William P., Yifan Wang, and Wei Cai. "Stress effects on the energy barrier and mechanisms of cross-slip in FCC nickel." Journal of the Mechanics and Physics of Solids 144 (2020): 104105.
Vorselen, Daan, Yifan Wang, Miguel M. de Jesus, Pavak K. Shah, Matthew J. Footer, Morgan Huse, Wei Cai, and Julie A. Theriot. "Microparticle traction force microscopy reveals subcellular force exertion patterns in immune cell–target interactions." Nature communications 11, no. 1 (2020): 1-14.
Wang, Yifan, Xiaohan Zhang, and Wei Cai. "Spherical harmonics method for computing the image stress due to a spherical void." Journal of the Mechanics and Physics of Solids 126 (2019): 151-167.
Kiani, Mehrdad T., Yifan Wang, Nicolas Bertin, Wei Cai, and X. Wendy Gu. "Strengthening mechanism of a single precipitate in a metallic nanocube." Nano letters 19, no. 1 (2018): 255-260.
Talks
April 12, 2023
Talk at 2023 Materials Research Society Spring Meeting & Exhibition, San Francisco, California
October 04, 2022
Poster at The 10th International Conference on Multiscale Materials Modeling, Baltimore, Maryland
May 11, 2022
Talk at 2022 Materials Research Society Spring Meeting & Exhibition, Honolulu, Hawaii
February 27, 2022
Talk at 2022 TMS Annual Meeting & Exhibition, Anaheim, California
June 08, 2018
Talk at 18th U.S. National Congress for Theoretical and Applied Mechanics, Chicago, Illinois
Teaching
Awards
- Juan C. Simo Thesis Award, Mechanics and Computation Group, Stanford University, 2022.
- Rising Stars in Mechanical Engineering, University of California, Berkeley, 2020.
Technical Skills
| Skills | Tools | Familiarity |
|---|
| Scientific Computing | Python | 5/5 |
| | MATLAB | 5/5 |
| | C/C++ | 4/5 |
| Atomistic Simulation | LAMMPS | 5/5 |
| | MD++ | 5/5 |
| | OVITO | 5/5 |
| | Atomsk | 4/5 |
| Machine Learning | PyTorch | 4/5 |
| | Scikit-learn | 4/5 |
| 3D Modeling & Visualization | Blender | 4/5 |
| | ParaView | 3/5 |
| Language | Chinese (Mandarin) | 5/5 |
| | English | 5/5 |
| | Japanese | 3/5 |
Service and Outreach
- Research Mentor for High-School Teacher Research Training, “Turning a physics class into a virtual lab,” Summer Research Program for Teachers & Teaching Engineering & Design Innovation (TEDI), Jun - Aug 2020.
- Research Mentor for Undergraduate Research Training, “Machine learning for physical and materials science problems: generative adversarial network for the Ising model,” Summer Undergraduate Research Program, Aug 2019.
- Research Mentor for Undergraduate Research Training, “Machine learning predictive model: investigating atomic behavior during elastic deformation in metallic glasses,” Winter Undergraduate Research Program, Jan 2019.
- President of Stanford Chinese Music Ensemble, 2014-2017
