Julia R. Greer

Biosketch

Greer obtained her S.B. in Chemical Engineering with a minor in Music Performance from MIT in 1997 and a Ph.D. in Materials Science from Stanford, worked at Intel (2000-03) and was a post-doc at PARC (2005-07). Julia joined Caltech in 2007 and currently is a Ruben F. an Donna Mettler Professor of Materials Science, Mechanics, and Medical Engineering at Caltech, as well as Chair of the Applied Physics and Materials Science Department and Editor in Chief of the Journal of Applied Physics.
Greer has more than 170 publications, has an h-index of 82, and has delivered over 100 invited lectures, which include 2 TEDx talks, multiple plenary lectures and named seminars at universities, including Watson lecture at Caltech, Gilbreth Lecture at the NAE, the Midwest Mechanics Lecture series, and a “IdeasLab” at the World Economic Forum, and was selected as Alexander M. Cruickshank Lecturer by Gordon Research Conferences (2022).
She received the Nadai Medal from ASME Materials Deivision (2024), the Eringer Medal from the Society of Engineering Science (2024), was the inaugural AAAFM-Heeger Award (2019) and was named a Vannevar-Bush Faculty Fellow by the US Department of Defense (2016) and CNN’s 20/20 Visionary (2016). Her work was recognized among Top-10 Breakthrough Technologies by MIT’s Technology Review (2015). Greer was named as one of “100 Most Creative People” by Fast Company and a Young Global Leader by World Economic Forum (2014) and received multiple career awards.
Greer is also a concert pianist who performs solo recitals, in chamber groups, and as a soloist with orchestras.

Research Interests

Greer’s research focuses on creating and characterizing nano- and micro-architected materials with multi-scale microstructural hierarchy using 3D lithography, nanofabrication, and additive manufacturing (AM) techniques, and investigate their mechanical, electrochemical, chemo-mechanical, and photonic properties as a function of architecture, constituent materials, and microstructural detail. We strive to uncover the synergy between the internal atomic- and molecular-level microstructure and the multi-scale external dimensionality, where competing material- (nano) and structure- (architecture) induced size effects drive overall response and govern these properties. Specific topics include applications of 3D nano- and micro-architected materials in devices, energy absorption, ultralightweight energy storage systems, chemically-assisted filtering, damage-tolerant fabrics, additive manufacturing, and multi-functional materials.