Welcome Umut!
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With a background in fracture mechanics, he is ready to tackle the world of soft materials!
Umut Altuntaş received his Bachelor's and Master's degrees in Aerospace Engineering from Middle East Technical University (METU) in Turkey, where he investigated the fracture mechanics of bioinspired soft–hard interfaces fabricated by multi-material additive manufacturing. He also worked as a visiting researcher at Stanford University on multifunctional structural battery composites.
During his PhD at SMaL, he will focus on understanding the fatigue behavior and fracture mechanisms of soft materials, including double-network elastomers, hydrogels, and composite soft systems.