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Thomas O’Connor is an Assistant Professor at Carnegie Mellon University, specializing in molecular continuum modeling simulations for the design of sustainable polymer materials. His research group focuses on improving soft material manufacturing methods, aiming to apply theory and simulation to understand the nanoscale structure and dynamics of plastics, gels, nanocomposites, and soft matter under equilibrium flow deformation. Prior to joining Carnegie Mellon, O'Connor was a Harry S. Truman Fellow at Sandia National Laboratories, where he developed an open-source platform for modeling polymer processing flows. He is also an active developer of the LAMMPS software for molecular simulations and aims to enhance science education by providing free modeling software for K-12 classrooms. O'Connor is a member of the U.S. Society of Rheology and the Division of Polymer Physics of the American Physical Society. His work involves a variety of computational methods, including molecular dynamics, lattice-Boltzmann methods, and mesh-free hydrodynamics, and he is particularly interested in designing new polymer manufacturing methods inspired by the natural manipulation of biopolymers in insects, spiders, and worms.
Admission is extremely competitive with no strict GPA cut-offs; holistic review is used.