Prof. Alan Zehnder

I grew up in the San Francisco Bay area where I spent lots of time tinkering with bicycles, motorcycles, cars and model airplanes.  That led me to study Mechanical Engineering at U.C. Berkeley and then on to graduate school at Caltech where I studied fracture mechanics.

At Cornell I’ve enjoyed teaching courses such as undergraduate engineering mathematics and mechanics and graduate solid mechanics, fracture, plasticity and experimental methods. I’ve enjoyed serving in a number of academic leadership positions including: Director of Graduate Studies, Theoretical and Applied Mechanics (TAM), Chair of TAM, Associate Director for Undergraduate Affairs, Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering (MAE), Interim Director of MAE,  Associate Dean for Diversity and Faculty Development, and Senior Associate Dean for Undergraduate Programs in the College of Engineering.

Cornell MAE Faculty Profile
LinkedIn page

Current PhD Students:

 

PhD and MS Graduates

I have been privileged to work with an outstanding group of PhD and MS students. I am proud of their accomplishments at Cornell and beyond.

Mark Thurston, PhD ’94
Jacob Kallivayalil, PhD ’95
Mark Viz, PhD ’96
Shujun Tang, Ph.D ’99
Yogesh Potdar, PhD ’01
Kavi Bhalla, PhD ’01
John Antonakakis, MS ’05
Tuncay Alan, PhD ’07
Manoj Pandey, PhD ’07
Peeyush Bhargava, PhD ’08
Tuhin Sahai, PhD ’08
Michael Czabaj, PhD ’10
David Blocher, PhD ’12
Ben Hasseldine, PhD ’15
Scott Grutzik, PhD ’15
Yi Xu, PhD ’17
Mincong Liu, PhD ’19
Fan Cui, MS ’21
Aditya Bhaskar, PhD ’22

Jikun Wang, PhD ’23