Dr. West completed his undergraduate education at Lehigh University in Civil and Environmental Engineering and earned his PhD at Cornell University. During his graduate studies, Dr. West developed expertise in mechanical testing conceptualization, analysis, and simulation for fatigue and fracture prediction. Computationally, he contributed to algorithm development for efficiently calculating fracture properties in brittle solids from displacement data. His dissertation emphasized his experimental contributions, particularly a novel high-throughput, high-cycle fatigue testing methodology to characterize aerospace alloy behavior.
As a KURe scholar working in the Dolbow computational mechanics laboratory, Dr. West is applying his prior experience to characterize kidney stone ablation and fracture during laser lithotripsy. Through mechanical testing and modern computational techniques, his goal is to build a predictive framework for the timing and location of kidney stone fracture initiation and propagation during procedures, leading to safer and more effective outcomes. His broader research interests include creating innovative experimental strategies for fatigue characterization of biomaterials and developing computational models for the multi-physics problems inherent to complex environments. Ultimately, his work aims to advance predictive mechanics across both biomedical and structural systems.