Elías-Zúñiga, Alex

Dr. Elías graduated as a Mechanical Engineer in 1983 from Tecnológico de Pachuca then, entered Tec de Monterrey in 1985 where he was awarded with his Master Degree in 1986. He was highly motivated in working in the field of nonlinear phenomena and was attracted by the research work done by Millard Beatty, a former Ph. D. student of Professor Jerald L. Ericksen and then, entered at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln where he got his Ph. D degree in 1994. His experience at Tec de Monterrey involves teaching at the undergraduate and graduate levels, doing applied research and industrial consulting services to local or international firms. Dr. Elias has served as the Head of the Mechanical Engineering Department from 2001 to April 2008 and then, he was promoted as the Director of the Engineering Doctorate Ph. D. program (2008-2012). Under his leadership, this graduate program was recognized by the Mexican Research Council (Conacyt) as one of the Top Ten Engineering Graduate Programs in Mexico. His research interests focus mainly on the areas of nonlinear material behavior where he has been working on deriving constitutive material models based on statistical mechanics and the concept of equivalent materials. He has been able to characterize theoretically and experimentally nanocomposites materials that are commonly used in biomedical and engineering applications. In the area of nonlinear dynamics, he has studied the behavior of nonlinear systems by using the familiar semi-analytical mathematical methods. He has developed mathematical models and computer algorithms that provide solutions of nonlinear differential equations that described the behavior of physical phenomena found in many practical applications. Dr. Elías has been working on deriving constitutive material models based on statistical mechanics and the concept of equivalent materials. He has been able to characterized theoretically and experimentally nanocomposites materials that are commonly used in engineering applications. Regarding his industrial experience, he is currently engage in several consulting and research projects aimed to support the technological development of international firms such as Prolec GE, Vitro Vidrio, Whirlpool, Siemens, Honeywell Aerospace, and C-Bond Systems, among others, in the areas of new product development with emphasis in nanotechnology applications. At present, Dr. Elías has published more than 60 articles in International Journals (JCR), and about a 120 papers in International Conferences and Proceedings. Regarding his industrial experience, he is currently engage in several consulting and research projects aimed to support the technological development of local firms particularly in the area of new product development with emphasis in nanotechnology innovations. He is leading a Research Group that focus on Nanotechnology and Devices Design in collaboration with the Tec de Monterrey Medical School and he is currently a full time research professor of the Sciences and Engineering School and Head of the Nanotechnology Graduate Program.