CEE’s Simos Gerasimidis Receives Mutual Mentoring Micro Grant

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Simos Gerasimidis

Associate Professor Simos Gerasimidis of the UMass Amherst Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE) Department has obtained a 2025-26 Mutual Mentoring Micro Grant to support “Advancing Research in Mechanics Through Cross-institutional Collaboration” between himself and Professor John Hart and other faculty from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Department of Mechanical Engineering. The UMass Amherst Office of Faculty Development (OFD) granted 14 awards to faculty and librarians leading mutual mentoring projects for 2025-26.

Micro grants of up to $1,500 are offered to individual faculty or librarians to conduct mutual mentoring projects. Micro grants can involve up to two additional people who are within or outside of UMass Amherst. 

OFD's Mutual Mentoring Grant Program aims to help faculty and librarians to develop and deepen their mentoring networks and community and grow as researchers, teachers, and leaders in their fields. As the OFD says, “This year's cohort involves faculty from a variety of career stages and from all parts of campus, including nine colleges and schools. Projects take on a wide range of challenges – research and networking for faculty of color, parenting, improving faculty clinical competency, mentoring junior faculty, translational research and public engagement, developing interdisciplinary and cross-institutional relationships, and many others.”

The project being conducted by Gerasimidis emphasizes how cross-institutional and cross-departmental collaboration can advance research in mechanics and additive manufacturing for civil infrastructure. 

According to Gerasimidis, “Through visits to MIT and joint tasks, the team will explore shared research directions and experimental platforms. A central theme is applying additive manufacturing, particularly additive- and digitally-enabled repair solutions, to extend the life of large structures such as bridges.” 

Gerasimidis adds that “By combining mechanical engineering’s expertise in materials and manufacturing with civil engineering’s knowledge of infrastructure and performance, the collaboration seeks to develop impactful new approaches.”  

Gerasimidis says the initiative also includes developing curriculum elements that integrate these concepts into teaching, as has been done in additive manufacturing in mechanical engineering for many years now. Case studies and example problems will help train students to connect laboratory-scale innovations in additive manufacturing with real-world infrastructure applications. 

“This grant not only provides mentoring and research support,” concludes Gerasimidis, “but also establishes a foundation for long-term partnerships, preparing the ground for future proposals and educational innovation across institutions.”

The Gerasimidis Group studies stability of structures and materials. As he explains, “We are interested in numerical, analytical, and experimental methods to describe the stability of structural systems across scales. Our research interests lie in the areas of new truss or plate-lattice architected metamaterials, auxetic composites for civil infrastructure, shell-buckling and energy-barrier methods, analysis, inspection and repairing of aging bridges, and energy structures.” 

Gerasimidis has accumulated a wealth of impressive experience and many honors, which can be viewed here: PEOPLE | mysite.