Glaucio Paulino - Biography#

Professor Paulino is an internationally recognized leader in optimization and applied mechanics whose work has had sustained and significant impact across Europe and globally. His seminal contributions span topology optimization, architected and multifunctional materials, solid and structural mechanics, deployable structures, and computational mechanics, integrating theory, computation, and engineering practice.

He has maintained long-standing and influential collaborations with leading European researchers and institutions, contributing directly to Europe’s scientific excellence in mechanics, materials, and optimization. His work has shaped research directions in multiscale and multiphysics topology optimization, variational methods, and fracture mechanics, with strong resonance in European research communities in mechanical engineering, materials science, and applied math. His methodologies for deformation and fracture modeling, including the widely adopted PPR cohesive fracture model, have been implemented in commercial and research software platforms used extensively by European research groups and industry.

Professor Paulino has played a central role in advancing research in architected materials and origami-inspired mechanics through high-impact publications, invited plenary and keynote lectures, and leadership in major international conferences and workshops. His work on deployable structures, origami engineering, and tensegrity systems has influenced research in metamaterials, robotics, aerospace structures, and sustainable design. Notably, his zipper-coupled origami structures—patented in both the United States and Japan—have enabled the development of programmable and reconfigurable materials and structures with unprecedented mechanical properties.

Professor Paulino has made enduring contributions to research training and education through mentorship of graduate students and postdoctoral scholars, service as an external examiner, and leadership in international workshops and advanced courses. His educational software for topology optimization (the PolyTop family: PolyMesher, PolyTop, PolyFluid, and PolyMat) and for origami engineering (MERLIN) has facilitated broad dissemination of advanced computational methods and has been widely adopted by universities and research institutions worldwide.

He is the author of the monograph Symmetric Galerkin Boundary Element Method (Springer, 2008), published by a leading European scientific publisher and downloaded thousands of times worldwide. His research impact is reflected by an h-index of 101 (Google Scholar), with extensive citations from European research groups across multiple disciplines.

Through sustained collaboration, scientific leadership, and knowledge dissemination, Professor Paulino has made lasting contributions to European science and engineering. Further information on his research, education, and service activities is available at https://paulino.scholar.princeton.edu.