Computational Mechanics Group
The mission of the Oden Institute Computational Mechanics Group (CMG) is to pursue research and development in computational mechanics and to promote Ph.D. and post-doctoral education in the discipline. Activities span fundamental mathematical investigations, the development of new and powerful computational methods and algorithms, and engineering, scientific and medical applications.
A current focus of the CMG is isogeometric analysis, an integrated vision of computational geometry and analysis aimed at unifying the disparate methods and data structures of Computer Aided Geometric Design (CAGD) and Finite Element Analysis (FEA), and breaking the current bottleneck in the translation of CAGD representations to FEA models. Isogeometric analysis provides a unique geometric foundation to product development, from design through analysis. In the few years since its inception, isogeometric analysis has become one of the most active research areas of computational mechanics, attracting investigators from mathematics, computer science and engineering.
Directors
Thomas J.R. Hughes
Faculty and Research Staff
Narayana Aluru
Jesse Chan
Loukas Kallivokas
Chad M. Landis
Robert Moser
Gregory J. Rodin
Charley Taylor
Shaolie Hossain
Students
Staff
Members outside the Oden Institute
Michael Abdelmalik, Ekim Ekiz, Konstantin Key, Geonyeong Lee and Ashkan Madadi
News in brief
Profile
Sept. 9, 2026
The Brain's Hidden Plumbing and the Math Behind It - Profile Derya Bakiler
Oden Institute Ph.D. student A. Derya Bakiler is building computational models of the glymphatic system, the brain's recently discovered waste disposal network, with the goal of understanding how plaque formation linked to Alzheimer's disease progresses in individual patients.
News
Sept. 7, 2026
Fusion Energy Seed Grants Launch New Interdisciplinary Collaborations at UT Austin
Faculty at UT Austin have been awarded seed grants to unite fusion physicists, engineers and computational scientists while training graduate students for careers in fusion energy. The projects will develop faster, AI-assisted tools for plasma control, liquid-metal reactor materials, magnetic confinement and plasma-edge simulations.
News
April 24, 2026
Oden Institute 2026 Moncrief Grand Challenge Awardees Announced
The Oden Institute has awarded Narayana R. Aluru, Patrick Heimbach, Thomas J. R. Hughes, and Joseph Kileel as recipients of the 2026 W. A. "Tex" Moncrief Grand Challenge Awards.
Their funded projects span brain-inspired ionic computing, climate and ocean modeling, patient-specific digital twins for metastatic prostate cancer, and scientific machine learning.