New Faculty Virginia Tech's College of Engineering 2008-2009

Since the fall of 2007 he was a scientific researcher at
the Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands. There,
he developed integral quadratic constraint (IQC) analysis and
synthesis tools as part of a European Space Agency (ESA)
project.
He hopes to continue his work at Virginia Tech, focusing
on the development of robust tools for the cooperative control
of multi-vehicle systems in complex environments. He also
plans to work on reducing the computational complexity of
such problems through model reduction and simplified computational
algorithms exploiting the problem structure. Other
topics of interest to him include embedded software verification
and validation where all levels of system implementation are to
be examined.
He is interested in teaching graduate courses on semidefinite
programming and its various applications in control, as
well as established courses on dynamic systems and control
from the undergraduate and graduate curricula.
At Virginia Tech, he will be a member of the dynamics
and control group in the Aerospace and Ocean Engineering
Department, and will also be involved in the activities of the
Virginia Center for Autonomous Systems.
Gary Don Seidel earned all three of
his degrees in aerospace engineering at
Texas A&M University. He received his
bachelor’s degree, magna cum laude, in
1999, his master’s in 2002, and his doctorate
in 2007. For the past year, he served
as a postdoctoral research associate in
the Texas Institute of Intelligent Bio-Nano
Materials and Structures for Aerospace
Vehicles and as a lecturer in the Aerospace
Seidel
Engineering Department at Texas A&M.
Seidel’s research has primarily focused on the theoretical
development and computational implementation of multi-scale
models with particular emphasis on analytic and computational
micromechanics approaches. This research has been part of
efforts to develop multi-scale models for assessing structure
property relations in multi-functional nanocomposites consisting
primarily of carbon nanotube reinforced polymers, and
has been successful in identifying some of the key features
effecting nanocomposite properties, e.g. the importance of
bonding relative to clustering on elastic properties, the relative
importance of some of the mechanisms behind the formation
of conductive networks on electrical properties, and the significance
of interfacial thermal resistance on thermal properties.
The results of these efforts have been presented at numerous
professional society meetings and conferences, and have led
to the publication of four refereed journal articles. This work
has been part of on-going collaborative efforts with research
scientists both at Sandia National Laboratories, the National
Institute of Aerospace, and Texas A&M, and has led to additional
funding from both NASA and NSF.
Additionally, Seidel’s research interests include the development
and application of cohesive zone models for capturing
damage evolution in polymer composites, methods for bridging
atomistic and continuum length and time scales in nanocomposites;
micromechanics modeling of materials with time-varying
effective properties due to microstructural evolution, and
active materials.
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