Postdoctoral researchers
PhD graduate students
Khuzaima Hummad
Khuzaima Hummad is a PhD student in structural engineering, building upon his strong foundation in civil engineering. He completed his bachelor’s degree from the National University of Science and Technology (NUST) in Pakistan. In January 2024, he joined the SMARTI lab, where he is currently focusing on the innovative field of deployable thick origami geotechnical anchors through experimental work and computation. khummad at illinois.edu
Masters graduate students
Larry St. Pierre
Larry is a Master’s student in Structural Engineering. He obtained his bachelor’s degree at UIUC in Mechanical Engineering in May 2025. He joined the SMARTI Lab in 2023 to research tensile behavior of Multilayered Randomly Architected Material (MLRAM). Currently, his research explores off-grid energy solutions for de-icing roadways such as solar panels and piezoelectrics.
Brian Dionicio
Brian is a Master’s student in Structural Engineering. He joined the SMARTI Lab in September 2024 as an undergraduate researcher. He earned his Bachelor’s degree in Civil Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign with a primary focus in Structural Engineering. His research interests include structural health monitoring of movable bridges, with emphasis on machine learning, damage detection, and the influence of traffic loading. bdion2 at illinois.edu
Past Visiting Researchers
Dr. David Forster, University of Stuttgart
Past People of SMARTI lab
Arka Reksowardojo, PhD, Assistant Professor at Aarhus University
Angshuman Baruah, PhD, employed at Datum Engineering
Sagnik Paul, PhD, Postdoc at University of Massachusetts Amherst
Yulin Zhu, MS, doctoral researcher in Mech Eng at Penn State
Zhixing Wang, MS
Elizabeth Capretta, MS, employed at TYLin Silman
Heather Gathman, MS, employed at IMEG, Naperville
Juan Torres, MS, employed at Thorton Tomasetti, Milwaukee
Kaylee Tucker, MS, employed at Wiss, Janney, and Elstner Associates, Chicago
Mohamed Mohamed Abshir, Sofia Tovar de Leon, Tohma Kobayashi, Sheel Sansare, Christina Garcia, Tu Huynh, Matt Grendzinski, Abraham Xu, Richard Yoo, Hongjie Luo, Konstantin Kotelnikov, Jesse Ekanya, Jon Guttello, Aidan Wefel, Sirapop Chavavelchakul, Casey Rodgers, Michael Naranjo