University of Rochester | United States
Dr. Niaz Abdolrahim is an accomplished materials scientist and Assistant Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Rochester, where she leads pioneering research in multiscale modeling, nanomechanics, and computational materials science. She earned her Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering and has since developed a strong research portfolio that integrates atomistic simulations, machine learning, and continuum mechanics to study deformation mechanisms, structural phase transformations, and the design of high-performance nanostructured materials. With over 44 published documents, more than 717 citations, and an h-index of 16, her scholarly contributions have been widely recognized in the fields of materials modeling and nanostructure design. Dr. Abdolrahim has secured multiple NSF-funded projects, including the study of stress-assisted phase transformations and data-driven analysis of lattice dynamics. Her work has been published in prestigious journals such as Acta Materialia, npj Computational Materials, Physical Review B, and ACS Applied Nano Materials. Her research interests encompass nanostructured metals, deformation physics, data-driven materials design, and high-performance alloys. Dr. Abdolrahim’s innovative contributions continue to advance the understanding of mechanical behavior in nanoscale systems and establish her as a leading figure in computational materials science and multiscale simulation.
Featured Publications
Mostafa, A., Qian, S., Li, F., Rabkin, E., & Abdolrahim, N. (2026). Bending-induced phase transformations and penta-twinning in molybdenum: From nano to microscale. Acta Materialia, 264, 121646. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.actamat.2025.121646
Karami, S., Kum, T. B., Kirmani, A. R., & Abdolrahim, N. (2025). Proton radiation effects in indium oxide using cascade molecular dynamics simulations. APL Energy, 4(9), 0266752. https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0266752
Alvarez, A., Abdolrahim, N., & Singh, S. (2025). Anomalous elastic softening in ferroelectric hafnia under pressure. Physical Review B, 111(6), 064106. https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.111.064106
Mostafa, A., Vu, L., Guo, Z., Shargh, A. K., Dey, A., Askari, H., & Abdolrahim, N. (2024). Phase-transformation assisted twinning in molybdenum nanowires. Computational Materials Science, 237, 113273. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.commatsci.2024.113273
Salgado, J. E., Lerman, S., Du, Z., Xu, C., & Abdolrahim, N. (2023). Automated classification of big X-ray diffraction data using deep learning models. npj Computational Materials, 9(1), 214. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41524-023-01164-8