周宏伟，男，汉族，重庆合川人，中共党员，1965年1月生。现任中国矿业大学(北京)教授、博导，教育部“长江学者奖励计划”特聘教授，力学与建筑工程学院副院长。兼任教育部高等学校力学基础课程教学指导委员会委员、中国岩石力学与工程学会废物地下处置专委会副主任、《力学与实践》、《岩石力学与工程学报》等编委、北京力学会常务理事。曾赴波兰、德国、法国、新加坡、丹麦、荷兰、中国香港等国家和地区的大学开展合作研究。

Dr. Chen’s main research interest is in the fundamental understanding of the thermodynamics and kinetics of phase transformations and mesoscale microstructure evolution in bulk solid and thin films using computer simulations. Microstructure is a general term that refers to a spatial distribution of structural features that can be phases of different compositions and/or crystal structures, or grains of different orientations, or domains of different structural variants, or domains of different electrical or magnetic polarization, as well as structural defects such as dislocations. Essentially all engineering materials contain certain types of microstructures, and our success of designing new materials is largely dependent on our ability to control them. It is the size, shape, and spatial arrangement of the local structural features that determine the physical properties of a material such as mechanical, electrical, magnetic and optical properties.

For the last two decades, Dr. Chen’s group at Penn State is particularly active in developing phase-field models for microstructure evolution during various materials processes including grain growth, coherent precipitation, ferroic domain formation, particle coarsening, domain structure evolution in thin films, phase transformation in the presence of structural defects, and effect of stress on microstructure evolution. Current research focus is on the effect of stress/strain on ferroelectric phase transitions and domain structure evolution in ferroelectric and multiferroic thin films, domain structures in ferromagnetic shape memory alloys, electrode microstructure evolution in solid oxide fuel cells and batteries, precipitate microstructure evolution in Al-, Mg-, Ti- and Ni-alloys, microstructure evolution during additive manufacturing, growth morphology of two-dimensional materials, and effect of defects such as dislocations on microstructure evolution.

Dr. Chen’s group collaborates extensively with experimentalists and with industry and national labs