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So Yeon Kim

So Yeon Kim

Assistant Professor

My research focuses on enhancing the damage tolerance of active materials for the modern energy industry (e.g., applications ranging from nuclear power plants to batteries), whose microstructures dynamically evolve during service and are subject to significant internal stresses. We engineer imperfections in materials to promote relatively benign damage while preventing the development of catastrophic damage, such as helium embrittlement in irradiated metals for nuclear reactors and electrochemo-mechanical degradation of solid electrolytes. To this end, our work integrates high-throughput atomistic modeling with autonomous materials synthesis and in operando microscopy and diffractometry. Through these efforts, we aim to enable both economically and environmentally sustainable energy infrastructures.

Department

Mechanical Engineering

Contact

2011, Mechanical Engineering Bldg
1513 University Ave
Madison, WI

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  • BS , Seoul National University
  • MS , Seoul National University
  • ScD , Massachusetts Institute of Technology

  • Mechanical behavior of inorganic materials under multiphysical environments (e.g., electrochemical, nuclear):
  • o Solid electrolytes, mixed ionic-electronic conductors, metals for batteries
  • o Metal-ceramic composites for nuclear reactors
  • AI-driven materials design copilot, integrating:
  • o Defect/microstructure-aware materials informatics
  • o High-throughput atomistic modeling
  • o Robot-assisted autonomous synthesis
  • o In operando microscopy and diffractometry

  • Liu, Q., Polak, M. P., Kim, S., Shuvo, M. A., Deodhar, H. S., Han, J., Morgan, D., & Oh, H. (2025). Beyond designer’s knowledge: Generating materials design hypotheses via a large language model. Acta Materialia, 121307.
  • Kim, S., & Li, J. (2025). Electrochemical potential in multilayer solid electrolytes and mechanical implications. Acta Materialia, 291, 120982.
  • Kim, S., Park, Y. J., & Li, J. (2025). Leveraging neural network interatomic potentials for a foundation model of chemistry. arXiv preprint arXiv:2506.18497.
  • Kim, S., Kavak, S., Bayrak, K"ubra G"urcan,, Sun, C., Xu, H., Lee, M. J., Chen, D., Zhang, Y., Tekouglu, Emre,, Augaougullari, Duygu,, & others, (2024). Demonstration of Helide formation for fusion structural materials as natural lattice sinks for helium. Acta Materialia, 266, 119654.
  • Kim, S., & Li, J. (2022). Machine learning of metal-ceramic wettability. Journal of Materiomics, 8(1), 195--203.
  • Xu†, Haowei,, Kim, S., Chen, D., Monchoux, J., Voisin, T., Sun, C., & Li, J. (2022). Materials Genomics Search for Possible Helium-Absorbing Nano-Phases in Fusion Structural Materials. Advanced Science, 9(32), 2203555.
  • Kim, S., & Li, J. (2021). Porous mixed ionic electronic conductor interlayers for solid-state batteries. Energy Material Advances.

  • EMA 303 - Mechanics of Materials (Spring 2026)