Mehmet Cil, PhD
Modeling and characterization of granular materials at particle scale
PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR
Giuseppe Buscarnera
Assistant Professor
g-buscarnera at northwestern.edu
Education
BSc, Politecnico di Milano
MSc, Politecnico di Milano
PhD, Politecnico di Torino
Professor Buscarnera obtained his B.S. and M.S. in Civil Engineering from the Politecnico di Milano and a Ph.D. in Geotechnical Engineering from Politecnico di Torino. Prior to joining Northwestern University, he has been a postdoctoral associate at the Politecnico di Milano and has collaborated with several institutions, such as the Universidad Politecnica de Catalunya, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and The University of Sydney.
Professor Buscarnera’s research focuses on the theoretical study of failure processes in geomaterials, with emphasis on the multi-physical agents that can generate failure and deformation in geotechnical systems. The objective of his research is to develop new methods to improve our ability to assess the susceptibility to natural hazards, improve the design of civil infrastructures and assist the development of safe and sustainable energy technologies. During his studies he has been awared with the Rocca Fellowship from MIT in 2008 and the ALERT PhD Prize of the Alert Geomaterials association in 2011. His research activities have been awarded with the NSF Early Career Faculty Development (CAREER) Award in 2013.
Curriculum Vitae 
POST-DOCTORAL FELLOWS
Ferdinando Marinelli, PhD
Numerical modelling of constitutive behavior of geomaterials during failure
GRADUATE STUDENTS
Constance Mihalache, PhD Candidate
Stability of multiphase porous media at varying degrees of fluid-saturation
Yida Zhang, Research Assistant
Multi-scale modeling of unsaturated granular matter at high-pressures
Jose Lizarraga, research assistant
Geomechanical models for landslide forecasting in unsaturated soil slopes
Changbum Sohn, Research Assistant
Particle-scale modeling of geoenvironmental processes in granular systems
Molly Diggory, Research Assistant
Hydrologic processes in unsaturated shallow slopes
Shiva Esna Ashari Esfahani, research assistant (co-advised with Prof. Cusatis)
Multiscale modeling of localiation and fluid flow in granular rocks
Zhenhao Shi, research assistant (co-advised with Prof. Finno)
Constitutive and numerical modeling of failure in sensitive clays subjected to cyclic loading
UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS
Andrew Sonta
Image analysis and water retention experiments for crushed granular systems
Brett Horin
Micro-scale characterization of geometry and fracture properties of sand particles
Sara Maria Ibarra
Analytical modeling of water infiltration in natural slopes
FORMER MEMBERS
Arghya Das, PhD
Chemo-mechanics of cemented granular rocks
Post-doctoral collaborator. Now Assistant Professor at the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur
Reed Laverack (MS, 2013)
Compaction banding in high-porosity rocks.
Now at GEI Consultants, Chicago, IL
Shenjun Gao (MS, 2014)
Evolving water-retention capacity of granular materials at varying levels of particle fragmentation
Now PhD student at Tongji University, Shanghai, China
Michael Rui Chen (BS, 2012)
Fluid flow experiments in granular media
Now at USDA, Ketchikan, AK
VISITORS
Gloria Ciceri, MS 2014 (Politecnico di Milano, Italy)
Flow-failure of variably saturated sands subjected to water injection
Zipei You, PhD 2015 (Tongji University, China)
DEM investigation of volumetric collapse in loose sands
GROUP PHOTO (May 2013):
