Frederic Sansoz has earned a BS degree in mechanical and aerospace engineering and MS degree in materials science and engineering from the Ecole Nationale Supérieure de Mécanique et Aérotechnique (ISAE - ENSMA) in France in 1996, and a PhD degree with honors in materials science and engineering from Ecole des Mines in Paris in 2000. Before moving to Vermont, he was a post-doctoral fellow in mechanical engineering at the Johns Hopkins University until 2003. Sansoz received the National Science Foundation CAREER award in 2008, and two faculty awards for excellence in research at the University of Vermont in 2009 and 2017. His research focuses on understanding the mechanics and physics of metallic nanomaterials and has been published in high-impact journals such as Nature Materials, Nature Communications and Nano Letters. Also, he is passionate about teaching Materials Science to students at all levels, from middle-school to doctoral students.
Professor and ASME Fellow
Publications
Qiongjiali Fang and Frederic Sansoz, "Columnar grain-driven plasticity and cracking in nanotwinned FCC metals", Acta Materialia 212, 116925 (2021)
Rodrigo Penide-Fernandez and Frederic Sansoz, “Microscale Knudsen Effect over the Transverse Thermal Conductivity of Woven Ceramic Fabrics Under Compression”, International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 171, 121085 (2021)
Q. Zhu, Z. Pan, Z. Zhao, G. Cao, L. Luo, C. Ni, H. Wei, Z. Zhang, F. Sansoz and J. Wang, “Defect-driven selective metal oxidation at atomic scale”, Nature communications 12 (1), 1-8 (2021)
Zhiliang Pan and Frederic Sansoz, “Heterogeneous Solute Segregation Suppresses Strain Localization in Nanocrystalline Ag-Ni Alloys”, Acta Materialia, 200, 91-100 (2020)
Xing Ke, Jianchao Ye, Zhiliang Pan, Jie Geng, Matt F Besser, Dongxia Qu, Alfredo Caro, Jaime Marian, Ryan T Ott, Y Morris Wang, Frederic Sansoz, “Ideal Maximum Strengths and Defect-induced Softening in Nanocrystalline-Nanotwinned Metals”, Nature Materials, 18, 1207–1214 (2019)
Li Zhong, Frederic Sansoz, Yang He, Chongmin Wang, Ze Zhang, Scott X. Mao, “Slip-activated surface creep with room-temperature super-elongation in metallic nanocrystals”, Nature Materials, 16, 439-445 (2017)
Y.M. Wang, F. Sansoz, T.B. LaGrange, R.T. Ott, T.W. Barbee Jr, A.V. Hamza, “Defective Twin Boundaries in Nanotwinned Metals”, Nature Materials, 12, 697 - 702 (2013)
J. Wang, F. Sansoz, J. Huang, Y. Liu, S. Sun, Z. Zhang, S.X. Mao, “Near Ideal Theoretical Strength in Gold Nanowires containing Angstrom Scale Twins”, Nature Communications, 4, 1742 (2013)
Awards and Recognition
- 2019 Elected Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers
- 2017 CEMS Faculty Award for Excellence in Research
- 2011 Named among “World's Nanotechnology Thought Leaders” by AzoNano.com
- 2009 CEMS Milt Silveira Junior Faculty Award
- 2008 National Science Foundation CAREER Award
Associations and Affiliations
- Department of Mechanical Engineering
- Materials Science Graduate Program
- Member of the ASME, MRS, TMS and SF2M professional societies

Areas of Expertise and/or Research
Materials science and engineering, nanomaterials, small-scale mechanics and nano-energy
Education
- Ph.D., Materials Science and Engineering, Ecole des Mines de Paris
- M.S., Materials Science, ISAE-ENSMA, France
- B.S., Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, ISAE-ENSMA, France
Contact
- 802-656-3837
363 Votey
Monday & Tuesday 1:30pm - 2:30pm
Courses Taught
(Fall 2020)
ME101 - Materials Engineering
ME350 - Multiscale Modeling