Honored with another YIP award

July 9, 2019

Mohsen Zayernouri receives a second prestigious Young Investigator Program Award 

Mohsen Zayernouri of the Michigan State University College of Engineering has received another Young Investigator Program (YIP) Award – his second award since 2017. YIP awards are generally for $120,000 a year for three years.

Zayernouri is an assistant professor of mechanical engineering, and statistics and probability, at MSU. He is also the director of the Fractional Mathematics Anomalous Transport and Hydromechanics (FMATH) group at MSU. He joined MSU in 2015.

Engineering Dean Leo Kempel said YIP awards are both prestigious and selective and reflect the high standard of work being done in the College of Engineering.

“This program fosters creative research and recognizes Dr. Zayernouri's ability and promise for conducting basic research,” Kempel said. “It is a significant honor for a member of the College of Engineering to win this award twice since 2017.”

Zayernouri studies data- and design-driven fractional-order modeling, numerical analysis, and simulation of extraordinary materials for the design of future materials/media with specific missions and extraordinary capabilities.  

"The proposed stochastic modeling framework will lead to the development of new advanced multi-functional materials with a desired set of qualitative/quantitative design capabilities,” Zayernouri said. “This approach will break new ground for the development of new complex materials, new media with spatially variable heterogeneity and pre-defined wave propagation, in addition to nonlocal and memory-dependent phase-field analysis of failure processes that are subject to extreme events." 

James Klausner, professor and chair of the Department of Mechanical Engineering, said Zayernouri is an expert at using advanced computational tools from applied mathematics and data science to create predictive simulation tools for engineering problems.

“His second YIP Award in two years is an indication of the progress he is making in developing cutting edge algorithms to enable solutions to very challenging engineering problems.”

2019 award is from the U.S. Army Research Office (ARO) Broad Agency Announcement, designed to support the teaching and research careers of young researchers. His 2017 award was from the U.S. Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR).

Zayernouri received an MS (2012) and PhD (2015) in applied mathematics from Brown University. He also holds a PhD (2010) in mechanical engineering from the University of Utah and an MS (2006) in mechanical engineering from Tehran Polytechnic in Iran.