Postdoctoral researcher Yixi Shen has received a travel award from AI Unlocked: Empowering Higher Education through Research and Discovery, a national workshop sponsored by ACCESS, the NAIRR Pilot, and the University of Colorado Boulder. Scheduled for June 2–3, 2026, the workshop brings together researchers, educators, and students to explore how AI tools can be integrated into research and higher education.

Undergraduate researcher Liad Habot was awarded the Lucas Foundation fellowship for the 2026 academic year. The Gene and Susan Lucas Undergraduate Research Fund was created to help first-generation undergraduate students experience research alongside UCSB faculty. The program supports research for first-generation undergraduate UCSB students in the STEM fields (science, technology, engineering, and math). Funds may be used for stipend, required research materials, travel, conferences, or field experience.

5th year graduate student Rembert White gave a presentation at UCSB's annual Chemical Engineering Graduate Student Symposium. His talk was on predicting transmission of localized plasticity in Inconel 718.  Rembert's research focuses on the role of slip localization in cyclic fatigue using discrete slip band crystal plasticity modeling.

4th year graduate student Nico Fuchs-Lynch gave a presentation at UCSB's Graduate Simulation Seminar Series (GS^3).  His talk was on a Crystal Plasticity Fast-Fourier Transform (CP-FFT) model to probe slip localization development in precipitation-hardened IN-718.  Using highly resolved 3D EBSD data (TriBeam) and CP-FFT modeling, subregions of the 3D dataset in uniaxial tension are simulated and a criteria for identifying grains with a high propensity to develop slip localizations was determined based on previous combined experimental and simulation work.

The Beyerlein group celebrated the successful defense of Dr. Morgan Jones at Goleta Beach Park with lunch and a cake.  Morgan's dissertation was on thermally activated glide mechanisms in refractory body centered cubic metals and multi-principal element alloys (MPEAs). Morgan will look to continue her investigation of MPEAs this upcoming Fall as a postdoctoral fellow at Sandia National Laboratory.

A thermomechanical crystal plasticity model investigates how metals develop internal stresses and plastic deformation during thermal cycling. The model reveals that temperature variations can induce microplasticity, residual stresses, and localized lattice rotations. These insights are relevant for optimizing processes like metal forming and additive manufacturing, where large temperature changes significantly influence mechanical performance.

Jesus De La Mora, an undergraduate researcher and UC LEADS scholar, delivered a compelling presentation summarizing his research findings. His study employed phase field dislocation dynamics to investigate the critical glide stress of screw dislocations in molybdenum (Mo) across a temperature range of 300K to 1200K. The results revealed a decrease in critical glide stress with increasing temperature. Understanding the deformation behavior of pure body-centered cubic (bcc) metals like Mo is crucial for developing stronger and more temperature-resistant bcc alloys.

In this study, we explored the deformation and defect structures in the bcc-based Heusler intermetallic through a combination of in situ micro-mechanical testing and computational techniques. An ab initio informed phase field dislocation dynamics model is developed and used for predicting both defect structures in MnCu2Al, and the minimum stress to move them, at a resolution beyond the current experimental capabilities. 

Nico Fuchs-Lynch was awarded the Graduate Assistance in Areas of National Need Fellowship for 2023.  This award promises career planning and development mentoring and is funded by the Department of Education.

The Beyerlein group is excited to welcome the addition of Postdoctoral Scholar Pulkit Garg.  Pulkit will study multi-scale dislocation dynamics modeling of refractory multi-principal element alloys.  Before joining UCSB, Pulkit was a postdoc with Prof. Timothy Rupert at UC, Irvine where he investigated the structure-property relationships in nanocrystalline materials using molecular dynamics and first-principles techniques.

Brandon Leu is a recent graduate from the Beyerlein group. He earned his Ph.D. in Materials in March 2022. His research involved understanding twin/precipitate interactions in ultra-strong Mg alloys.

The Acta Student Award recognizes high quality in publication and great leadership potential in materials science.  Brandon's award-winning Materialia article is: Twinning pathways enabled by precipitates in AZ91, Materialia 21 (2022) 101292.