Dr. Pablo A. Tarazaga is an associate professor and the John R. Jones III Faculty Fellow in the Mechanical Engineering Department at Virginia Tech. He is also a Principal Faculty in the Myers-Lawson School of Construction. He forms part of the Center for Intelligent Material Systems and Structures (CIMSS) where he focuses on the general areas of structural dynamics, vibration, control, testing, adaptive structures and smart materials. Dr. Tarazaga also founded and directs the Virginia Tech Smart Infrastructure Laboratory which has created the most instrumented building in the world for vibrations and focuses on several areas of research aimed at advancing the area of smart infrastructure through a sensed environment.
Dr. Tarazaga is also the Honors Residential Faculty in East Ambler Johnston at Virginia Tech. For more information on that feel free to visit the Virginia Tech's Honors Residential Commons website here: VTHRC.
He previously served as a research assistant (post-doc) in the Aerospace Engineering Department at the University of Bristol in Bristol, United Kingdom. He worked under the direction of David J. Ewins, Professor of Vibration Engineering and director of BLADE. His research focused on efficient test strategies for model validation with application to large structures. Pablo was part of the AgustaWestland University Technology Center (UTC) at The University of Bristol.
He previously served as a research assistant (post-doc) in the Aerospace Engineering Department at the University of Bristol in Bristol, United Kingdom. He worked under the direction of David J. Ewins, Professor of Vibration Engineering and director of BLADE. His research focused on efficient test strategies for model validation with application to large structures. Pablo was part of the AgustaWestland University Technology Center (UTC) at The University of Bristol.
Pablo did his graduate studies in the Mechanical Engineering Department at Virginia Tech. While at Virginia Tech he joined the Center for Intelligent Material Systems and Structures (CIMSS) where he also served four years as lab manager. He obtained his M.S. degree in 2004 entitled "Model Updating Using a Quadratic Form" under the guidance of Professor Daniel J. Inman director of CIMSS in collaboration with Dr. Yoram Halevi from the Technion Israel Institute of Technology. He obtained his Ph.D. degree in 2009 entitled "Dynamics and Control of Pressurized Optical Membranes" under the guidance of Professor Daniel J. Inman and Professor Marty E. Johnson.
His teaching focuses in the areas of vibrations and he teaches undergraduate and graduate classes in this area. He and his group enjoy performing outreach in STEM with emphasis to incoming freshman and high school girls through CEED's C-Tech2 program.
Dr. Tarazaga's research topics are many as he has widespread interests in several fields of research. His current research focuses on the areas of traveling waves, structural health monitoring, self-sensing SMA systems, reference free stress measurements, mimicking of hair cells behavior using smart materials, testing of ultra lightweight structures, model validation, single sensor acoustic field characterization, biomedical devices, model reduction of FDTD acoustic models, large scale instrumentation, smart infrastructure, building occupant tracking, classification and localization to name a few. Much of this work has been published in 100+ journal and conference articles. He is still active in his PhD's main area of research, dynamics and control of a pressurized optical membrane for adaptive optics, as he still has more contributions to the area (i.e. the introduction of passive control, testing and validation techniques, etc.). Pablo's other areas of research are energy harvesting, intelligent material applications, dynamics and control, bi-stable plate actuation using smart materials, model updating and model reduction, experimental modal analysis, and vibration suppression.
He is sponsored by several federal and industrial agencies and a list can be seen in the members link under sponsors.
He is sponsored by several federal and industrial agencies and a list can be seen in the members link under sponsors.