Rachel Sun

Rachel Sun is a PhD candidate whose research is focused on the mechanics of solids and structures as they apply to materials, sustainable technology, and medicine. Specifically, she is exploring acoustic metamaterials and reconfigurable architected materials. Supported by a MathWorks Fellowship, Rachel will continue her promising explorations of the acoustic properties of metamaterials at the microscale, with the goal of designing and analyzing an acoustic braced cubic micro-lattice with bandgaps in the MHz frequency range. This work may advance technology such as microscale waveguides or logic switches and potentially lead to advances in microcomputing and medical ultrasound. In addition, Rachel is engaged in a MathWorks seed project on magnetically actuated reconfigurable architected materials. Her goal is to develop a new class of 3D reconfigurable architected materials and mechanisms with microscale features that exhibit magnetic-field-induced reconfiguration and actuation. MATLAB has been instrumental in Rachel’s research. Her work has the potential to yield valuable new technologies to support next-generation medical and computing devices and smart multifunctional materials.