Bibekananda Datta

As of October 2025, I am a postdoctoral research associate in Theoretical Division (Fluid Dynamics and Solid Mechanics group) at Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, NM. Before joining LANL, I completed my PhD in Mechanical Engineering (mechanics and materials track) in Nguyen Lab at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD. Before Hopkins, I got my MS from Washington State University, Pullman, and BS from Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology, Dhaka, all in Mechanical Engineering.

My research interests lie at the intersection of solid mechanics, computational methods, and materials modeling. At LANL, I am working on additively manufactured polymers and polymer composites; developing constitutive models to evaluate material behaviors in extreme environment and their numerical implementatons to run large scale finite element simulations of structures. During my PhD, I worked on developing multiphysics framework, constitutive models, and numerical implementations for stimuli-responsive hydrogels for soft sensing and robotics applications as well as water harvesting. Previously, I worked on the thermomechanical failure of 2.5D/3D microelectronics packaging and continuum dislocation plasticity modeling.

Besides engineering, I have always found anthropology, mythology, and sociology very fascinating. In leisure, I love watching standup comedies and sitcoms, listening to music, going on road trips, reading comics, and sometimes writing blogs.

News

Jan 10, 2026	Pre-print of modeling strain rate-induced glass transition of elastomers is available on arXiv.
Feb 24, 2024	Paper on the modeling of reactive DNA hydrogel in JMPS is now available online.
Dec 21, 2023	Paper on data-driven modeling of the hydrogel cralwer is accepted at ICRA 2024.

Latest Posts

May 09, 2024	Using LAPACK libraries with Intel Fortran and Abaqus user subroutines
May 02, 2024	Licensing and citing academic software and tutorials
Apr 20, 2023	LaTeX in MS PowerPoint and VS Code on macOS

Selected Publications

JEM

A model for intermetallic growth in thin Sn joints between Cu substrates: Applications to solder microjoints

Yeasir Arafat, Hanry Yang, Indranath Dutta, Praveen A. Kumar, and Bibekananda Datta

Journal of Electronic Materials, May 2020

Bib HTML

@article{arafatModelIntermetallicGrowth2020,
  title = {A model for intermetallic growth in thin Sn joints between Cu substrates: Applications to solder microjoints},
  author = {Arafat, Yeasir and Yang, Hanry and Dutta, Indranath and Kumar, Praveen A. and Datta, Bibekananda},
  year = {2020},
  month = may,
  journal = {Journal of Electronic Materials},
  volume = {49},
  number = {5},
  pages = {3367--3382},
  doi = {10.1007/s11664-020-08019-8},
  google_scholar_id = {IjCSPb-OGe4C},
}

Science Robotics

Untethered unidirectionally crawling gels driven by asymmetry in contact forces

Aishwarya Pantula, Bibekananda Datta, Yupin Shi, Margaret Wang, Jiayu Liu, Siming Deng, Noah J. Cowan, Thao D. Nguyen, and David H. Gracias

Science Robotics, Dec 2022

Bib HTML

@article{pantulaUntetheredUnidirectionallyCrawling2022,
  title = {Untethered unidirectionally crawling gels driven by asymmetry in contact forces},
  author = {Pantula, Aishwarya and Datta, Bibekananda and Shi, Yupin and Wang, Margaret and Liu, Jiayu and Deng, Siming and Cowan, Noah J. and Nguyen, Thao D. and Gracias, David H.},
  year = {2022},
  month = dec,
  journal = {Science Robotics},
  volume = {7},
  number = {73},
  pages = {eadd2903},
  issn = {2470-9476},
  doi = {10.1126/scirobotics.add2903},
  google_scholar_id = {qjMakFHDy7sC},
}

JMPS

A reactive electrochemomechanical theory for growth and remodeling of polyelectrolyte hydrogels and application to dynamic polymerization of DNA hydrogels

Brandon K. Zimmerman, Bibekananda Datta, Ruohong Shi, Rebecca Schulman, and Thao D. Nguyen

Journal of the Mechanics and Physics of Solids, May 2024

Bib HTML

@article{zimmermanReactiveElectrochemomechanicalTheory2024,
  title = {A reactive electrochemomechanical theory for growth and remodeling of polyelectrolyte hydrogels and application to dynamic polymerization of DNA hydrogels},
  author = {Zimmerman, Brandon K. and Datta, Bibekananda and Shi, Ruohong and Schulman, Rebecca and Nguyen, Thao D.},
  year = {2024},
  month = may,
  journal = {Journal of the Mechanics and Physics of Solids},
  volume = {186},
  pages = {105568},
  doi = {10.1016/j.jmps.2024.105568},
  google_scholar_id = {eQOLeE2rZwMC},
}