The 2026 JN Reddy Medal Inaugural Recipient

Kun Zhou

Professor and Associate Chair (Research) in the School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore.

Citation:

For pioneering research on contact mechanics of heterogeneous materials and for outstanding contributions in improving the mechanical properties of materials by addressing challenges at the intersection of mechanics and additive manufacturing

Professor Zhou earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in mechanical engineering from Tsinghua University, China (1998, 2001), and his PhD in mechanical engineering from NTU (2006). He was a Postdoctoral Fellow at Northwestern University, USA (2007–2010), and a Visiting Scholar at Harvard University, USA (2013).

Professor Zhou’s research lies at the intersection of mechanics and additive manufacturing of metallic and polymeric materials. He bridged a critical knowledge gap in contact mechanics by developing an analytical framework that enables rigorous modeling of contact responses and failure in materials with subsurface heterogeneity, thereby establishing a strong theoretical foundation for advanced research and high-impact industrial applications. In the field of additive manufacturing, his group has advanced the development of high-performance alloys by integrating modeling at various length scales with powder bed fusion and directed energy deposition processes, leveraging fundamental insights into thermal transport, solidification dynamics, phase transformations, and deformation mechanics, thereby achieving performance beyond that attainable through conventional processing methods. His team has also developed multifunctional fiber-reinforced polymer composites by elucidating and tailoring process–structure–property relationships in powder bed fusion.

He has published over 560 journal articles, five books (two authored and three edited), and 40 book chapters; his publications have garnered more than 40,200 citations and an h-index of 97 on Google Scholar. He has been recognized as a Clarivate Highly Cited Researcher in Cross-Field (2022, 2023) and Materials Science (2024, 2025).

Professor Zhou has served as the General Chair (2024) and a Co-Chair (2025) of the International Conference on Computational & Experimental Engineering and Sciences. He also serves as Editorin-Chief of Journal of Polymer Materials, Co-Editor-in-Chief of Computer Modeling in Engineering & Sciences, and as an Associate Editor or Editorial Board Member of various international journals, including Applied Mechanics Reviews and International Journal of Mechanical Sciences.

He was elected a Fellow of the European Academy of Sciences and a Member of the European Academy of Sciences and Arts. He was also elected a Fellow of the American Physical Society, the Institute of Physics (UK), the Institution of Mechanical Engineers (UK), the Royal Aeronautical Society (UK), the Royal Society of Chemistry (UK), and the Institute of Materials, Minerals & Mining (UK).

Link to Web Page:
http://www.mae.ntu.edu.sg/aboutus/FacultyandStaff/Faculty/Pages/kzhou.aspx