Faculty Profile for Dr. Karim Heinz Muci-Kuchler

Biography Section

Biography and Education

Karim H. Muci-Kuchler, Ph.D. is a Professor of Engineering and Mechanical Engineering Academic Program Coordinator at the Ingram School of Engineering of Texas State University. He is Professor Emeritus of Mechanical Engineering at the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology (SDSMT) where he worked from August 2002 until December 2021. When he retired from SDSMT in December 2021 he was Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Director of the Experimental and Computational Mechanics Laboratory. From January 1999 to August 2002 he was an Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Detroit Mercy. Prior to that, from January 1993 to December 1998, he was a faculty member in the Mechanical Engineering Department of the Instituto Tecnologico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey (ITESM), Monterrey Campus, where he started as an Assistant Professor and was later promoted to Associate Professor. He has taught a wide variety of engineering related undergraduate and graduate courses and his main research interest areas include Engineering Education, Computational Mechanics, Solid Mechanics, Impulsive Loading Events, and Digital Twins.

Dr. Muci-Kuchler received his Ph.D. in Engineering Mechanics from Iowa State University in 1992. He holds a BS in Mechanical-Electrical Engineering (1985) and a ME in Mechanical Engineering (1988) from ITESM, Monterrey Campus. As a graduate student he was invited to join the following honor societies: Tau Beta Pi, Sigma Xi, and Phi Kappa Phi. Dr. Muci-Kuchler is a Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, co-author of a book about Adaptive Meshing with Boundary Elements, and author or co-author of over 85 publications. The latter include papers related to engineering education, the boundary element method, the friction stir spot welding process, and surrogate perforating projectile wounds, among others. He is an ABET PEV, has served as session chair or co-chair at international conferences, has reviewed papers for technical journals and conference proceedings, has served as panelist for the National Science Foundation (NSF), and has done consulting for industry in Mexico and the US.

Research Interests

STEM Education, Digital Twins, Computational Mechanics, Solid Mechanics, Biomechanics.