
Paul Davidson
Assistant Research Scientist
Location
François-Xavier Bagnoud Aerospace Building
1320 Beal Avenue Ann Arbor, MI 48109-2140
Education
PhD Mechanical Engineering, University of Michigan ‘13
M Eng, Automotive Engineering, University of Michigan ‘09
B Eng, Automotive Engineering, University of Madras ‘04
Research Interests
Damage, fracture and fatigue of composite materials
Low velocity and high velocity impact of composite materials
Materials architecture
Professional Service
American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics
American Society of Composites
American Society of Mechanical Engineering
Biography
Dr. Paul Davidson is an assistant research scientist in the Department of Aerospace Engineering at the University of Michigan. Prior to joining University of Michigan, Dr. Davidson was a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at University of Washington, Seattle. Dr. Davidson was also researcher at General Electric Research Center in Niskayuna, NY. His primary research interests include composite mechanics, specifically on the damage, failure and fatigue of composite materials, advanced manufacturing methods, multi-scale analysis, low velocity and high velocity impact damage, and micro-mechanics. He has extensive industrial experience in the aerospace, wind energy and automotive sectors.
At GE, he worked on extreme event risk mitigation technologies that prevent catastrophic aerospace engine failure due to bird strike, blade out, impact and sand ingestion. Dr Davidson is currently working on, optimization of spacecraft structural performance using advanced Automated Fiber Placement methods, multi-scale fatigue of composite materials, Machine learning methods for Non-Destructive Evaluation of impact damage.
POSITIONS HELD AT U-M
Research Scientist, 2018 – current
Awards
- ASME/Boeing award for best paper – 2019
- The Joint Center for Aerospace Technology Innovation (JCATI) Award 2018-2019.
- The Joint Center for Aerospace Technology Innovation (JCATI) Award 2017-2018.
- University of Washington Royalty Research Fund and Washington Research Foundation, CoMotion Innovation Fund Award.
- Nominee, UW Postdoc Mentoring Award
- General Electric Above and Beyond awards for Leadership, Innovation.
- “Leading the way” award -Visteon global award for excellence and leadership.