Steve Waiching Sun
Associate Professor of Civil Engineering and Engineering Mechanics
Professor Sun is an associate professor of civil engineering and engineering mechanics at Columbia University. He obtained his B.S. from UC Davis (2005); M.S. in civil engineering (geomechanics) from Stanford (2007); M.A. degree from Princeton (2008); and Ph.D. in theoretical and applied mechanics from Northwestern (2011).
From 2011-2014, he worked in the mechanics of materials department at Sandia National Laboratories (Livermore, CA), first as postdoc, then promoted to the rank of senior member of technical staff in 2013. Sun's recent research interest is on high-precision machine learning and data-driven modeling of nature and man-made materials. Sun has published over 100 journal articles (see Publications).
His research has been recognized by several awards across the globe, including the John Argyris Award from IACM, Leonard de Vinci Award and Walter Huber Engineering Prize from ASCE EMI, Zienkiewicz Numerical Methods in Engineering Prize, among others. Since 2025, Sun has served as an editor for International Journal for Numerical Methods in Engineering.
Research Areas
- Multi-Hazard Risk Assessment and Mitigation
- Safety & Reliability
- Structural Engineering
- Advanced Materials
- Resilience and Risk Analysis
- Sustainable Infrastructure
- Geotechnical Engineering
- Additive Manufacturing
- Robotics and Automation
- Computational Mechanics
- AI for Science
Additional information
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Professional Experience
- Associate Professor (with tenure), Columbia University, 2020-current
- UPS Foundation Visiting Professor, Stanford University, 2022-2023
- Assistant Professor, Columbia University. 2014-2020
- Senior Member of Technical Staff, Sandia National Laboratories, 2013-2014
- Postdoctoral Appointee, Sandia National Laboratories, 2011-2013
- Visiting Scholar, California Institute of Technology, 2010-2011
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Professional Affiliations
- Engineering Mechanics Institute
- American Society of Civil Engineers
- American Society of Mechanical Engineers
- International Society of Porous Media
- Gesellschaft für Angewandte Mathematik und Mechanik
- American Geophysical Union
- Sigma Xi the scientific research society
- California Lambda Chapter, Tau Beta Pi Engineering Honor Society
- Golden Key International Honor Society
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Honors & Awards
- ASCE Walter L. Huber Civil Engineering Research Prize, American Society of Civil Engineers, 2023
- IACM John Argyris Award, International Association for Computational Mechanics, 2020
- NSF CAREER award, National Science Foundation, 2019
- ASCE EMI da Vinci Award, Engineering Mechanics Institute, American Society of Civil Engineers, 2018
- Zienkiewicz Numerical Methods in Engineering Prize, Institution of Civil Engineers, 2017
- AFOSR Young Investigator Program Award, Air Force Office of Scientific Research, 2016
- Dresden Junior Fellowship, Technische Universität Dresden, 2016
- ARO Young Investigator Program Award, Army Research Office, 2015
- Caterpillar Best Paper Prize, Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg, 2014
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Education
- Ph.D., Theoretical and Applied Mechanics, Northwestern University, 2011
- M.A., Civil Engineering, Princeton University, 2008
- M.Sc., Civil Engineering (Geomechanics), Stanford University, 2007
- B.Sc., Civil Engineering, University of California, Davis, 2005