Rate My Professor Daniel Eakins

Professor Daniel Eakins is Professor of Engineering Science in the Department of Engineering Science at the University of Oxford, serving as Associate Head of Department (Graduates), Director of the Rolls-Royce University Technology Centre for Solid Mechanics, and William-Penney Fellow. He earned his PhD in Materials Science and Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology in 2007, along with BS and MS degrees. Eakins' career trajectory includes a Director’s Postdoctoral Fellowship at Los Alamos National Laboratory, followed by a lectureship at Imperial College London in 2010, where he helped establish the Institute of Shock Physics and served as its Deputy Director. In 2017, he joined the University of Oxford as Associate Professor holding a Magnesium Fellowship within the Solid Mechanics and Materials Engineering Group, and was promoted to full Professor in August 2024.

An experimental scientist at the interface of extreme materials science, shock physics, and dynamic measurement science, Eakins investigates the ultrafast behaviour of materials under extreme loading conditions using gas-guns and high-power lasers, from lattice-level origins to bulk scale. His research emphasizes dynamic strength and failure of metals and ceramics, particularly heterogeneous systems, shock response of porous and cellular materials, dynamic energy absorption in additively manufactured lattices, and tuning shock-induced reactions in granular mixtures. He has pioneered advanced X-ray imaging methods to provide unprecedented details on material behaviour under shock compression. Leading the Impact and Shock Mechanics Laboratory, his work integrates experimental and numerical approaches to understand nonlinear responses under high strain rates, with applications in aerospace, automotive, and defence. Key publications include 'Investigating shock processes in bimodal powder compaction through modelling and experiment at the mesoscale' (International Journal of Solids and Structures, 2019), 'Insights into local shockwave behavior in granular materials from pre-shot X-ray tomography' (Journal of Applied Physics, 2019), 'Ultrafast imaging of laser driven shock waves using Betatron X-rays from a laser wakefield accelerator' (Scientific Reports, 2018), 'Probing the early stages of shock-induced chondritic meteorite formation at the mesoscale' (Scientific Reports, 2017), and 'Spatially resolved measurements of grain size effects on the shock and spall response of quasi-Taylor wave loaded pure copper' (Journal of Applied Physics, 2017).