Professor Thao (Vicky) Nguyen, Associate Professor, Johns Hopkins University, has been selected by the Applied Mechanics Division (AMD) of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) to receive the 2015 Thomas J. R. Hughes Young Investigator Award. Established in 1998, the Young Investigator Award was renamed the Thomas J.R. Hughes Young Investigator Award in 2008. The Young Investigator Award recognizes researchers under the age of 40 who have made special achievements in Applied Mechanics. The award, which includes a medal, a plaque, and honorarium, will be presented at the ASME International Mechanical Engineering Congress and Exposition, to be held in Houston, Texas, November 13-19, 2015.
Professor Nguyen was recognized by the AMD Executive Committee for her outstanding contributions to polymer mechanics and biomechanics. Her work develops innovative experiments and physics-based models to identify key mechanisms guiding the behavior of complex soft materials systems. She has developed unique continuum approaches for modeling the inelastic behavior, glass transition, and shape memory behavior polymers. In the area of biomechanics, she has developed advanced experimental methods and micromechanical models to explain the relationship between the tissue microstructure, mechanical properties, and function as well as their alterations with disease. Her work is guiding the development of therapeutic treatments for glaucoma that alters the mechanical properties of the eye wall to arrest the progression the progression of optic nerve damage.
Professor Nguyen received her S.B. from MIT in 1998, M.S. and Ph.D. from Stanford in 2004 in Mechanical Engineering. She worked as a research scientists in Mechanics and Materials at Sandia National Laboratories in Livermore, CA from 2004-2007, when joined the Mechanical Engineering Department at the Johns Hopkins University as an Assistant Professor. She was promoted to Associate Professor with tenure in 2014. In 2008, Professor Nguyen was selected for the Early Career Scientist and Engineer Award by the NNSA Office of Defense Program and the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE) for her work on modeling the thermomechanical behavior of shape memory polymers. In 2013, she received a CAREER award from the National Science Foundation to investigate the micromechanisms of growth and remodeling of collagenous tissues, the inaugural Eshelby Mechanics Award for Young Faculty for the creative use and development of mechanics, and the Sia Nemat-Nasser Eary Career Award, which recognizes research excellence in Mechanics and Materials from the Materials Division of ASME.