People

Professor Shunyu Liu

She joined the Department of Automotive Engineering at Clemson University as an Assistant Professor in January 2021 after earning her Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from Purdue University in December 2020. Her research areas include laser additive manufacturing (AM), hybrid AM, advanced materials development, computational materials science, and machine learning. Her experimental research focuses on structural and functional metals, multi-material fabrication, and advanced materials for extreme environments. Her computational research centers on developing simulation frameworks to model solidification, microstructure evolution, phase transformations, and mechanical behavior. She is also building a thermal-mechanical-metallurgical model to explore dynamic recrystallization in a novel hybrid in-situ rolled AM process. Additionally, she integrates machine learning for materials design, process optimization, and defect control. She is managing several projects as PI and co-PI, funded by NSF, DOE, ARL, and Clemson University. She collaborates internally across multiple engineering disciplines and externally with Argonne and Los Alamos National Laboratories and industry partners to advance manufacturing and materials technologies. With expertise in advanced manufacturing, materials science, solid mechanics, and applied mathematics, her research aims to pioneer cutting-edge manufacturing techniques and develop innovative materials for next-generation applications.

Email: shunyul@clemson.edu

Office: CGEC #326, 864-365-0476

Address: 4 Research Drive, Greenville, SC29607

Awards and Honors
  • Junior Researcher of the Year in the College of Engineering, Computing and Applied Sciences at Clemson University (2025).
  • NSF EPSCoR Research Fellowship (2025).
  • SME Susan Smyth Outstanding Young Manufacturing Engineer Award (2024).
  • NSF CAREER Award (2023).
  • Best Reviewer Award of the Journal of Manufacturing Science and Engineering (2022).
  • First-author research paper titled “A novel 3D Cellular Automata-Phase Field model for computationally efficient dendrite evolution during bulk solidification,” published in Computational Materials Science, was chosen as an Editor’s Choice (2021).
  • First-author review paper titled “Additive manufacturing of Ti6Al4V alloy: a review,” became the most cited paper in the Materials & Design journal within two years of publication (2019).

Som Dixit

Position: Ph.D. candidate

Area: Defect metallurgy in AM materials, AM of metal-matrix composites, phase-field and crystal plasticity finite element modeling.

Email: somd@clemson.edu

Awards and Honors
  • 2024 Hitachi High Technologies Electron Microscopy Graduate Fellowship of $25,000 at Clemson University.
  • 1st position in the Preliminary round of the 3-minute thesis (3MT) competition at the College of Engineering Computing and Applied Sciences (CECAS) at Clemson University.
  • 2nd position in MRS & Optica’s 17th annual poster competition held at Clemson University in March 2024.
  • CECAS GSAB Supplementary Travel Award for attending The Mineral, Metal & Material Society (TMS-2024) conference held in Orlando, Florida.
  • First-author review paper titled “Laser Additive Manufacturing of High-Strength Aluminum Alloys: Challenges and Strategies” selected as the editorial choice paper and nominated as a candidate for the best paper award in 2022 in the Journal of Manufacturing and Materials Processing.

Chinmay Rajesh Araikar

Position: Ph.D. student

Area: Hybrid AM, fuel cells, and finite element modeling.

Email: caraika@clemson.edu

Sk Samir Hasnain

Position: Ph.D. student

Area: AM of dissimilar materials and AM process modeling.

Email: shasnai@clemson.edu

Modupeola Oluwaseun Dada

Position: Ph.D. student

Area: AM of High-temperature materials for energy applications.

Email: mdada@clemson.edu

Jiaxuan Li

Position: Ph.D. visiting scholar

Area: AM of advanced materials for extreme environments.

Email: jiaxuan@clemson.edu

Mrunalini Mudenti

Position: Master student, hourly

Area: Machine learning of materials design.

Email: mmudent@clemson.edu