2025 Kovalevsky Lecture

Citation. Dr. Yongjie Jessica Zhang is a distinguished scholar renowned for her pioneering work in computational geometry and finite element methods, with profound impacts across biomedical and engineering applications. As a professor at Carnegie Mellon University, she has advanced meshing techniques that enable precise simulations in complex domains that appear in medical imaging and biological modeling. Dr. Zhang’s innovative research on isogeometric analysis has set new standards in numerical accuracy and computational efficiency. Her numerous publications, leadership roles, and accolades, including her status as a fellow of several scientific societies, underscore her dedication to advancing the field and inspiring the next generation of computational scientists.

Biographical Sketch. Jessica Zhang is the George Tallman Ladd and Florence Barrett Ladd Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) with a courtesy appointment in Biomedical Engineering. She received her B.Eng. in Automotive Engineering, and M.Eng. in Engineering Mechanics from Tsinghua University, China; and M.Eng. in Aerospace Engineering and Engineering Mechanics and Ph.D. in Computational Engineering and Sciences from Institute for Computational Engineering and Sciences (now Oden Institute), The University of Texas at Austin. Her research interests include computational geometry, isogeometric analysis, finite element method, data-driven simulation, image processing, and their applications in computational biomedicine and engineering. Zhang has co-authored over 240 publications in peer-reviewed journals and conference proceedings and received several Best Paper Awards. She published a book entitled Geometric Modeling and Mesh Generation from Scanned Images with CRC Press, Taylor & Francis Group. Zhang is the recipient of AWM-SIAM Sonia Kovalevsky Lecturer, Simons Visiting Professorship from Mathematisches Forschungsinstitut Oberwolfach of Germany, US Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, NSF CAREER Award, Office of Naval Research Young Investigator Award, and USACM Gallagher Young Investigator Award. At CMU, she received David P. Casasent Outstanding Research Award, George Tallman Ladd and Florence Barrett Ladd Professorship, Clarence H. Adamson Career Faculty Fellow in Mechanical Engineering, Donald L. & Rhonda Struminger Faculty Fellow, and George Tallman Ladd Research Award. She is a Fellow of SIAM, ASME, IACM, USACM, IAMBE, AIMBE, SMA, and ELATES at Drexel. She is the Editor-in-Chief of Engineering with Computers.