Multifunctional materials and structures that carry load, dissipate energy, and actively respond to external stimuli hold great potential for various applications, such as robotics, biomedical devices, and civil structures. Realizing such systems requires design strategies that can navigate high-dimensional architectural spaces, material heterogeneity, nonlinear mechanics, and multiphysics coupling, as well as fabrication methods that translate optimized fields into physical architectures.

In this talk, we present optimization-driven design frameworks with advanced manufacturing strategies to design, fabricate, and experimentally validate multifunctional systems, across both hard materials (i.e., disordered mechanical metamaterials and multimaterial metallic structures under elastoplasticity) and soft materials (i.e., magneto-active materials and thermo-active liquid crystal elastomer). Geometry, material distribution, internal architecture, and spatial anisotropy are treated as design variables to program stiffness–strength tradeoffs, controlled nonlinear responses, and stimulus-triggered shape transformations. We investigate design problems where AI-enabled method is necessary to make exploration of complex nonlinear spaces computationally feasible, as well as problems where rigorous multiphysics modeling is essential to ensure predictive reliability and mechanistic interpretability.

To bridge computation and realization, we develop hybrid fabrication strategies, tailored toolpath generation methods, and direct ink writing techniques to realize optimized designs. Experimental validation across mechanical and stimuli-responsive systems demonstrates strong agreement between target behaviors, simulations, and performance. Together, these results illustrate how multifunctionality can be systematically programmed through design across material classes, providing a pathway toward engineered systems with integrated structural and adaptive capabilities.

Bio: Dr. Xiaojia Shelly Zhang is a David C. Crawford Faculty Scholar and Associate Professor at the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and the Department of Mechanical Science and Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign (UIUC). She directs the MISSION (MuIti-functional Structures and Systems desIgn OptimizatioN) Laboratory. Dr. Zhang holds B.S. and M.S. degrees from UIUC and a Ph.D. degree from Georgia Tech. Her research explores multi-physics topology optimization, inverse design, stochastic learning algorithms, and additive manufacturing to develop multi-functional, sustainable, and resilient materials, structures, and robots for applications at different scales. She is the recipient of the National Science Foundation CAREER Award (2021), the ASME Journal of Applied Mechanics Award (2022), the DARPA Young Faculty Award (2022), the AFOSR Young Investigator Award (2023), the Leonardo da Vinci Award from ASCE (2024), the DARPA Director's Fellowship (2024), UIUC Campus Distinguished Promotion Award (2025), the Thomas J.R. Hughes Young Investigator Award from ASME (2025), the ASME Henry Hess Early Career Publication Award (2025), the Haftka Young Investigator Award from International Society for Structural and Multidisciplinary Optimization (2025), and Huajian Gao Young Investigator Medal from SES (2026). Dr. Zhang serves on the Executive Committee of the International Society of Structural and Multidisciplinary Optimization (ISSMO) and is a Review Editor for the Journal of Structural and Multidisciplinary Optimization and an Associate Editor for the Journal of Applied Mechanics.