College of Engineering and Mathematical Sciences

Department of Mechanical Engineering

Jihong Ma

Assistant Professor

Jihong Ma joined the Department of Mechanical Engineering at UVM in August 2020. Dr. Ma obtained her Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities in 2017, and her B.Eng. in Engineering Mechanics from Xi'an Jiaotong University (China) in 2012. Her Ph.D. thesis focused on computational heat transport in nanomaterials. She then worked as a Postdoctoral Associate in the Department of Civil, Environmental, and Geo- Engineering at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, studying topological metamaterials from 2017 to 2019, and at Oak Ridge National Laboratory - Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences on soft matter simulations.

Dr. Ma has published her work in many top journals in her field, including Physical Review Letters, Small, Small Science, Carbon, Communications Physics, and Physical Review Applied. At UVM, Dr. Ma is working on the structure-property relationship of materials at multiple scales (from nano- to macro-) via a combination of theoretical analysis, numerical simulations, and experimental characterizations. Her current active research projects include investigations of self-healing polymers, polymeric membranes for carbon capture, organic electronics, quantum dots, dynamics of phononic crystals, and nanoscale thermal and electrical transport. She has received funding as a PI or Co-PI from various sources, including the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Department of Energy, NASA, and the Semiconductor Research Corporation. She was an Air Force Research Laboratory Summer Faculty Fellow in 2023.

Publications

Book

J. Ma, T. Dumitrica, Nano-scale Heat Transfer in Nanostructures, Springer Briefs in Applied Sciences and Technology (2018)

Papers

A. Rajabpoor Alisepahi, S. Sarkar, K. Sun, J. Ma. Breakdown of Conventional Winding Number Calculation in One-Dimensional Lattices with Interactions Beyond Nearest Neighbors. Communications Physics, 6, 334, (2023).

J. Ma, Phonon Engineering of Micro- and Nanophononic Crystals and Acoustic Metamaterials: A Review, Small Science, 3, 2200052 (2023)

E.F. Joubaneh, J. Ma, Symmetry Effect on the Dynamic Behaviors of Sandwich Beams with Periodic Face Sheets, Composite Structures 289, 115406 (2022)

J. Ma, J.Y. Carrillo, C. Do, W-R Chen, P. Falus, Z. Shen, K. Hong, B.G. Sumpter, Y. Wang, Spatial Correlations of Entangled Polymer Dynamics, Physical Review E 104 (2), 024503 (2021)

Z. Shen, J. Ma, J.Y. Carrillo, W-R Chen, B.G. Sumpter, Y. Wang, Spatiotemporal mapping of mesoscopic liquid dynamics, Physical Review E 103 (2), 022609 (2021)

D. Zhou, J. Ma, K. Sun, S. Gonella, X. Mao, Switchable phonon diodes using nonlinear topological Maxwell lattices, Physical Review B 101 (10), 104106 (2020)

J. Ma, K. Sun, S. Gonella, Valley-Hall In-Plane Edge States as Building Blocks for Elastodynamic Logic Circuits, Physical Review Applied 12 (4), 044015 (2019)

J. Ma, D. Zhou, K. Sun, X. Mao, S. Gonella, Edge Modes and Asymmetric Wave Transport in Topological Lattices: Experimental Characterization at Finite Frequencies, Physical Review Letters 121 (9), 094301 (2018)

H. Xu, J. Ma, T. Dumitrica, Smooth sliding and superlubricity in the nanofriction of collapsed carbon nanotubes, Carbon 134, 531-535 (2018)

J. Ma, H. Xu, T. Dumitrica, Collapsed carbon nanotubes as building blocks for high-performance thermal materials, Physical Review Materials 1 (5), 056001 (2017)

J. Ma, A. Dasmahapatra, P. Kroll, E. Meletis, T. Dumitrica, Compositional and structural atomistic study of amorphous Si–B–N networks of interest for high-performance coatings, The Journal of Physical Chemistry C 120 (42), 24346-24353 (2016)

J. Ma, Y. Ni, T. Dumitrica, Nanowires with Dislocations for Ultralow Lattice Thermal Conductivity, Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics (Communication), 18(15), 9888-9892 (2016)

C.G. Wang, Y.P. Liu, J. Ma, T. Dumitrică, M.K. Wadee, H.F. Tan, Buckling behavior of carbon nanotubes under bending: from ripple to kink, Carbon 102, 224-235 (2016)

J. Ma, Y. Ni, S. Volz, T. Dumitrica, Thermal transport in single-walled carbon nanotubes under pure bending, Physical Review Applied 3 (2), 024014 (2015)

J. Ma, Y. Ni, T. Dumitrica, Thermal conductivity and phonon scattering in severely bent carbon nanotubes and bi-layer graphene, Materials Today: Proceedings 2 (6), 3819-3823 (2015)

S. Xiong, J. Ma, S. Volz, T. Dumitrica, Thermally‐Active Screw Dislocations in Si Nanowires and Nanotubes, Small (Communication) 10 (9), 1756-1760 (2014)

Awards and Recognition

● U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory Summer Faculty Fellowship (2023)
● National Science Foundation EPSCoR Research Fellowship (2022 - 2024)
● University of Vermont Early EXtra Promotion of REsearch and Scholarly Success Grant Award (2020 -2021)
● APS Division of Materials Physics Post-doctoral Travel Award (2020)
● APS Division of Computational Physics Travel Award (2020)
● Albert Swanson Memorial Fellowship Award (2016–2017)
● 2017 Minnesota Supercomputing Institute Poster Finalist (2017)
● APS Division of Materials Physics Ovshinsky Student Travel Honorable Mention Award (2016)
● Mechanical Engineering Graduate Teaching Fellowship (2015-2016)
● Mechanical Engineering Department Fellowship (2012-2013)
● Mathematical Contest in Modeling Honorable Mention Award (2012)
● The Interdisciplinary Contest in Modeling Honorable Mention Award (2011)
● Siyuan Scholarship (2008-2012)