The American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) has recently recognized a UConn College of Engineering faculty member for her early career contributions in advancing mechanical characterization and multiscale description of biomaterials.

School of Mechanical, Aerospace, and Manufacturing Engineering associate professor Anna Tarakanova was selected to receive the Sia Nemat-Nasser Early Career Award.

The award recognizes early career research excellence in the areas of experimental, computational, and theoretical mechanics and materials. Young investigators (within 10 years after their Ph.D. degree) are honored with this award, which also has a special emphasis placed on under-represented groups.

Offered through ASME, the award was established in 2008 by their materials division.

Tarakanova won the award for, “foundational advances in the mechanical characterization and multiscale description of biomaterials, uniting analytical theory, computational methods, and experiments, and for sustained leadership in the mechanics and materials communities.”

“It is a tremendous honor to receive this recognition from ASME,” Tarakanova says. “I set out to build computational models that could crack open problems in biological materials people thought were too complex to model, and to have that ambition recognized by the mechanics community is enormously energizing. It tells me the questions we’re chasing are the right ones.”

She received her BS in applied and engineering physics from Cornell University, followed by a MS and Ph.D. in computational mechanics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. After completing a postdoctoral fellowship at MIT (2017–2018), she joined UConn Engineering as an assistant professor in 2018 and was promoted to associate professor in 2025.

Tarakanova leads a research program that develops predictive, physics-based models of complex materials, from proteins and biological systems to synthetic and engineered soft matter, with applications in aging, disease, biomaterials design, and next-generation materials. By integrating analytical theory, multiscale simulation, machine learning, high-performance computing, and experimental collaboration, she creates frameworks that transform highly disordered materials into systems that can be engineered by design. Her work has appeared in Nature, PNAS, Nature Communications, Science Advances, Biomaterials, JMPS, and Nature Computational Materials. She is principal investigator on NIH R01 and NSF CAREER Award grants and has led or co-led multiple federally and internationally funded projects.

Her central contribution is the development of rigorous multiscale frameworks that connect molecular structure, statistical mechanics, and macroscopic behavior across complex materials. She has developed atomistic and coarse-grained models of structural and matrix proteins, high-performance fibers, adaptive polymers, and molecular actuators, including the first fully atomistic model of human tropoelastin, which clarified the relationship between molecular sequence, disorder, and elasticity. More broadly, these methods provide a transferable strategy for predicting how molecular architecture governs material mechanics, bringing previously intractable systems within reach of quantitative design.

In short, Tarakanova has not merely applied existing mechanics to new systems, she has broadened the conceptual foundations of the discipline itself, extending predictive engineering into classes of materials it could not previously reach.

“What fascinates me is the fundamental physics we can capture in biological materials, and how mechanisms emerge across scales,” Tarakanova says. “Learn those principles, and nature becomes a guide—for designing new materials and for treating disease, engineering that borrows biology’s own logic.”

Locally and nationally, her contributions have been recognized with numerous honors, including the 2024 Eshelby Mechanics Award for Young Faculty, the 2024 ASME Rising Star of Mechanical Engineering Award, the 2024 UConn Excellence in Research and Creativity Early Career Award, and selection as a 2025 Women of Innovation Finalist.

“Professor Tarakanova has established herself as one of the leading early career researchers in computational mechanics,” says Horea Ilies, director of the School of Mechanical, Aerospace, and Manufacturing Engineering. “Her pioneering research, commitment to interdisciplinary collaboration, and dedication to mentoring students exemplify the excellence we strive for at UConn. This national recognition is well deserved.”

Tarakanova will receive the award in November at ASME’s annual meeting.