Laurent Capolungo

[Ph.D. ME 2007]
Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Los Alamos National Laboratories
Los Alamos, New Mexico

e-mail: laurentc@lanl.gov

I became quite passionate for the area of mechanics of materials while pursuing my master's degree in France. During my last year's mandatory internship, I was given the chance to work with Dr. Qu and Dr. Cherkaoui on multiscale modeling of the then emerging nanomaterials. After only a few weeks, I had already decided to pursue my education in order to obtain a Ph.D. The Woodruff School was the obvious choice for me given that most world experts in my research area were and still are Georgia Tech faculty.

Studying at the Woodruff School was a life changing experience. The outstanding quality of the faculty provided constant motivation to improve my technical skills. The Georgia Tech Lorraine campus in Metz, France, where I stayed for one year, was quite a unique setting. I enjoyed working with American students discovering Europe in an "effervescent" environment. To this day, I am still proud to say that I graduated from Georgia Tech.

Since graduating, I have worked as a Post-Doc at Los Alamos National Laboratory for two years. There, I focused my research on modeling hexagonal closed packed metals (Mg, Zr, Be...) at different length scales. I could not have been better prepared for this position.