Erdem Caliskan
Graduate Research Assistant The University of Tennessee, Knoxville
Personal website
I am a Graduate Research Assistant at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and a Graduate Research Opportunity (GRO) intern at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. My research is at the intersection of computational mechanics, fracture mechanics, and metamaterials, with a focus on leveraging graph neural networks for materials science. I am passionate about developing and applying cutting-edge computational tools to solve challenging problems in materials science, particularly in understanding and predicting the behavior of microstructured media. My goal is to contribute to the development of next-generation materials through open-source software and high-performance computing.
Research Areas
- Computational mechanics and high‑rate dynamics
- Graph neural networks for materials structure–property prediction
- Uncertainty quantification and surrogate modeling
- Fracture mechanics and failure of ceramics at high rates
- Resonant metamaterials under impact and blast
- HPC workflows and open‑source scientific software
Experience
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Graduate Research Assistant, The University of Tennessee, Knoxville
Jan 2022 - Current
Graduate Internship, Oak Ridge National Laboratory
May 2024 - Dec 2024 and May 2025 - Aug 2025
Mechanical Engineer, ITUNOVA Technologies
Mar 2020 – Feb 2021
Intern, Baykar Technologies
Aug - Sep 2019
Intern, Turkish Aerospace Industries - ITU Very Light Aircraft Project
Aug 2018 – Aug 2019
Student Organization Member, ITU Facilis Vehicle Team
Sep 2016 – Mar 2020
Education
Ph.D, Mechanical Engineering, The University of Tennessee, Knoxville
Jan 2022 – May 2026 GPA: 4.00/4.00, Details
M.Sc., Solid Mechanics, Istanbul Technical University
Feb 2020 – Nov 2021 GPA: 3.56/4.00, Details
B.Sc., Mechanical Engineering, Istanbul Technical University
Aug 2015 – Feb 2020 GPA: 3.08/4.00, Details
Journal Publications
- Caliskan, Erdem, Reza Abedi, and Massimiliano Lupo Pasini. “Graph Neural Networks for Mechanical Property Prediction of 2D Fiber Composites.” Materials & Design (2025): 114500. Publication link
- GNNs predict effective stiffness and peak load of fiber composites directly from microstructure graphs, reducing simulation cost while maintaining accuracy.
- Abedi, Reza, Colin Furey, Farhad Pourkamali-Anaraki, Giang Huynh, Erdem Caliskan, and Alireza V. Amirkhizi. “Analyzing fragmentation response of heterogeneous ring using the method of characteristics and machine learning techniques.” Computer Methods in Applied Mechanics and Engineering 436 (2025): 117709. Publication link
- Combines characteristic‑based modeling with ML to quantify fragmentation statistics in heterogeneous rings at high strain rates.
- Caliskan, Erdem, Willoughby Cheney, Weidi Wang, Thomas Plaisted, Alireza V. Amirkhizi, and Reza Abedi. “Time domain analysis of locally resonant elastic metamaterials under impact.” Mechanics of Advanced Materials and Structures (under review), arXiv preprint arXiv:2410.01029 (2024). Publication link
- Introduces a time‑domain framework to capture transient responses of resonant metamaterials under impact.
- Caliskan, Erdem, and Mesut Kirca. “Tensile characteristics of boron nanotubes by using reactive molecular dynamics simulations.” Computational Materials Science 209 (2022): 111368. Publication link
- MD simulations reveal tensile properties and failure mechanisms of triangular‑lattice boron nanotubes at the nanoscale.
Tools & Stack
- Finite element and CAE: LS‑DYNA, Ansys Workbench, Abaqus, deal.II
- CAD and design: SolidWorks, Siemens NX
- Molecular dynamics: LAMMPS
- ML and scientific computing: HydraGNN, PyTorch, PyTorch Geometric
- Parallel and HPC: MPI/SLURM, OpenMP
Awards & Scholarships
- Graduate Student Senate Travel Award, 2024
- Graduate School Fellowship, Summer 2023
- Graduate Student Senate Travel Award, 2023
- 2nd place, 5 Minute Thesis Competition - BASARIM 2022 - 7th High-Performance Computing Conference, organized with the cooperation of Turkish Academic Network and Information Center (ULAKBIM), Sabanci University, Middle East Technical University (METU) and the support of the EuroCC@Turkey project. Presentation
- High-Performance Computing resource grant at The National Center for High-Performance Computing (UHeM) and Turkish National Science e-Infrastructure (TRUBA), 2019-2021.
- Research project scholar, Acoustical Investigation of Nanoporous Materials by Using Molecular Dynamics Method, funded by The Scientific and Technological Research Institution of Turkey (TUBITAK), 2018-2019.
Conference Presentations
(*) presenter
- Caliskan, E.*, Das Anto, A., Abedi, R., Lupo Pasini, M., “Probabilistic Multi‑Task Graph Neural Network Surrogates for Elastic‑Plastic Behavior and Fatigue Indicator Prediction in Polycrystalline Alloys.” (accepted) SES Annual Technical Meeting, Atlanta, Georgia, October 12-15, 2025.
- Caliskan, E.*,Cheney, W., Wang, W., Amirkhizi, V. A., Abedi, R., “Design and Dynamic Response Analysis of Resonant Microstructured Media”, International Mechanical Engineering Congress and Exposition (IMECE) 2024, Portland, Oregon, November 17-21, 2024.
- Caliskan, E.*, Cheney, W., Wang, W., Amirkhizi, V. A., Abedi, R., “Transient Nonlinear Response of Resonant Metamaterial Arrays under Impact Loading”, 16th World Congress on Computational Mechanics (WCCM) and 4th Pan American Congress on Computational Mechanics, Vancouver, British Columbia, July 21-26, 2024.
- Caliskan, E.*, Cheney, W., Wang, W, Abedi, R., Amirkhizi, V. A., “Linear Time Domain Analysis of Resonant Microstructured Media and Higher Order Scattering Modes”, 17th US National Congress of Computational Mechanics (USNCCM), Albuquerque, New Mexico, July 23-27, 2023.
- Caliskan, E.*, Cheney, W., Wang, W, Abedi, R., Amirkhizi, V. A., “Time Domain Analysis of Resonant Microstructured Media under Impact Loading”, 2023 Engineering Mechanics Institute (EMI) Conference, Atlanta, Georgia, June 6-9, 2023.
- Caliskan, E., Cheney, W., Wang, W, Abedi, R. *, Amirkhizi, V. A., “Linear and Nonlinear Time Domain Analysis of Resonant Metamaterials under Impact Loading”, Mach Conference 2023, Baltimore, Maryland, April 6–8 2023.
- Abedi, R., Huynh, G.*, Caliskan, E., Amirkhizi A. V., Cheney, W., Wang W., Haber R. B., “A Hyperbolic Phase Field Model for High Strain Rate Fracture in Microstructured Media”, 15th World Congress on Computational Mechanics (WCCM), Yokohama, Japan, July 31 – August 5, 2022.
Memberships
- Tau Beta Pi - The Engineering Honor Society (2023–present)
- US Association of Computational Mechanics (2023–present)
- American Society of Mechanical Engineers (2023–present)