University Assistant Professor in Applied Mechanics

Academic Division: Mechanics, Materials and Design

Research group: Applied Mechanics

Telephone: +44 1223 7 48527

Email: ac685@eng.cam.ac.uk

Personal website

Research interests

Alice re-joined the University of Cambridge as a University Assistant Professor in Applied Mechanics in the Engineering Department (part of the Dynamics and Vibration Research Group), and as a Lecturer and Fellow in Engineering at Churchill College in September 2023. Alice's research group (founded in 2017) is the Data, Vibration and Uncertainty group.

Her research is focused on three Engineering overarching grand-challenges:

(i) Design under uncertainty and nonlinearity;
(ii) Monitoring and modeling complex systems for remaining useful life assessment under uncertainty, nonlinearity and sparse noisy data;
(iii) Development of explainable and interpretable machine learning strategies for engineering applications.

Alice enjoys exploring exciting new techniques based on physics-enhancing machine learning, uncertainty quantification, dynamic testing and advanced physics-based models… including those of spiders! She has experience working on research challenges related to energy, automotive, aerospace and civil engineering. She has also worked on cross-disciplinary research challenges related to Artificial Intelligence and Animal Vibration. 

Other positions

Alice is currently also:

• Part of the Core Team in the Centre for Climate Repair 
• Part of the Centre of Smart Infrastructure and Construction
• Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Experienced Research Fellow (2023- present).
• Advanced Visiting Fellow at the Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Sheffield (2022 - present).
• Executive Board member of the European Association of Structural Dynamics (EASD) - 2023-present.
• Editorial Board member for:
  • Data-Centric Engineering
  • ASCE-ASME Journal of Risk and Uncertainty in Engineering Systems, Part A: Civil Engineering,
  • ASCE-ASME Journal of Risk and Uncertainty in Engineering Systems, Part B: Mechanical Engineering.
• Member of the organizing committee of the International Conference on Recent Advances in Structural Dynamics, RASD 2024 (Southampton, UK).
• Member of the Scientific committee of the:
  • 13^th International Conference on Structural Dynamics, 27^th September - 1^st October 2026, Hannover, Germany, EURODYN 2026
  • 6th International Conference on Uncertainty Quantification in Computational Science and Engineering, UNCECOMP 2025
  • European Workshop on Structural Health Monitoring, EWSHM 2024.
  • 31st International Conference on Noise and Vibration Engineering International Conference, ISMA2024 (Leuven, Belgium)
  • International Conference on Uncertainty in Structural Dynamics International Conference, USD2024 (Leuven, Belgium)

Alice is also very passionate about teaching, and she was awarded the Bronze for Excellence in Teaching for the academic year 2018/19 at the Oxford Engineering Science Department.

Biography

• 2013, PhD, University of Cambridge
• 2009, MSc, University of Messina
• 2007, BEng, University of Messina

Previous (academic) positions:

• 2020 - 2023: Associate Professor and Section Head in Mechanics and Physics of Structures, TU Delft
• 2017 - 2019: Departmental Lecturer in Dynamics and Vibration, Engineering Science Department, University of Oxford
• 2017 - 2019: Career Development Fellow in Engineering, Balliol College, University of Oxford

Alice has held visiting positions at several research institutions, including MIT, University of Oxford, Sandia National Laboratories, the Alan Turing Institute and the University of Auckland. Alice was Honorary Lecturer at the University of Liverpool and an IAS Open Programme Fellow at Institute of Advanced Studies (Loughborough University).

Alice has organized and chaired technical sessions at international conferences, technical workshops and online seminar series. Alice was part of the organizing committee of the 10th International Conference on Modern Practice in Stress and Vibration Analysis (MPSVA 2022) and EURODYN 23, and member of the scientific committee of several conferences (including the Noise and Vibration Engineering Conference (ISMA) and of Uncertainty in Structural Dynamics (USD) conferences, ISMA2022-USD2022, UNCECOMP 21 and 23, and PASC 23).

Alice organised and chaired the first (2022 website) and second (2023 website) Physics-Enhancing Machine Learning in Applied Mechanics Workshops (2022), as part of the activities of the Institute of Physics Applied Mechanics group.

Alice has been recently invited as:

• Speaker for the Cambridge Society of Applied Research Lecture serires on:  “Physics IS enhancing Machine Learning – moving away from accurate-but-wrong predictions for bridges, wind turbines.. and the climate” (27/05/24).  Alice's slides.
• Keynote speaker at the Workshop: Latest Developments in Physics-Informed Machine Learning (18/03/24) - fringe event as part of AIUK2024 . Alice's slides.
• Panelist on "What roles can AI play in the future of design?" at the IABSE Future of Design event, London, 21 September 2023.  Alice's slides
• Presenter during the LiveQuay Modelling workshop (3/10/23) on Physics-Informed Machine Learning models for quay walls and bridges. Alice's slides can be found here

Alice will give a keynote lecture at: European Nonlinear Dynamics Conference (ENOC 2024)  in July 24.

Please note that the DVU group website is regularly updated with links to open access papers, codes and experimental dataset used in papers, learning resources about Machine Learning, Uncertainty Quantification and Structural Dynamics, and tips for early career researchers and early career academics. If you found these resources useful, it would be nice to know! 

Department role and responsibilities

Lecturer for the courses:

• 4C11, Data-driven and learning based methods in mechanics and materials (4th year course) - Alice's lectures can be found here
• 3C5, Lagrangian and Hamiltonian Mechanics (3rd year course)