Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.

Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock ( ) or https:// means you’ve safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

Nicolas A. Alderete (Assoc)

Postdoctoral Associate

Nanomechanical Properties Group

nicolas.alderete [at] nist.gov

(301) 975-4706

Staff Employment

Northwestern University, Research Associate (2018-2024), Evanston, IL.

3M, Research and Development Intern (2023-2023), St. Paul, MN.

Noietec S.A., Computational Mechanics and Design Engineer (2015-2018), Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Tenaris Centre for Industrial Research, R&D Engineer (2014-2015), Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Staff Education

Ph.D. Theoretical and Applied Mechanics (2024), Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, Advisor: Horacio Espinosa.

B.Sc. Mechanical Engineering (2015), Buenos Aires Institute of Technology (ITBA), Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Areas of Expertise

Mechanical properties

Modeling and computational material science

Image and signal processing

Modeling and simulation research

Numerical methods and software

Short Bio

Nicolas A. Alderete is a postdoctoral associate at NIST Gaithersburg in the Materials Measurement Laboratory (joint affiliation with George Washington University), Nanomechanical Properties Group. He joined NIST after graduating with a Ph.D. in Theoretical and Applied Mechanics from the Micro and Nanomechanics Lab of Prof. Horacio D. Espinosa at Northwestern University. During his tenure at Northwestern he focused on experimental and computational work towards studying the Mechanics of Shape-Morphing Programmable Metamaterials (namely Kirigami and Origami metamaterials) and Natural Phononic Materials. Prior to his PhD, Nicolas worked as a Research and Development Engineer for more than five years where he led several computational mechanics projects for the Metallurgical, Automotive, and O&G industries. His research has been published in several peer-reviewed journals, and he periodically contributes to the scientific community by serving as peer-reviewer.

His research interest include:

Computational modeling of materials and multiphysics problems.
Experiments for solid mechanics.
Scientific programming and software development.

At NIST he is focusing on multiphysics computational modeling of micro- and nanoindentation applied to the semiconductor industry.

Links of Interest

ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2145-8825
Google Scholar Profile: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=_C_ykOEAAAAJ

Awards

Best Student Presentation World Congress Micro and Nano Manufacturing (2023): Best student presentation for talk on Mechanics of Origami and Kirigami via Micro- and Nano- Manufacturing

Richter Memorial Terminal Year Fellowship (2023): Merit-based fellowship to support last year of doctoral program.

NSF/U. Pittsburgh Conference Presenter Travel Award (2022): merit-based travel award to present at 10th European Workshop on Structural Health Monitoring in Palermo, Italy.

Roberto Rocca Education Program Doctoral Fellowship (2018-2022): Four-year doctoral fellowship for exceptional university graduates from Latin America, Europe, and Asia to pursue a STEM doctorate.