Rate My Professor Garrett Pataky

Garrett J. Pataky is an Associate Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Clemson University in the College of Engineering, Computing and Applied Sciences. He joined the faculty in 2015 after earning his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2015, M.S. from the same institution in 2011, and B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Florida in 2009. As director of the Fracture Mechanics and Materials Experimental (FRAME) Lab, Pataky's research centers on experimental solid mechanics, material behavior, fatigue, and fracture. His group employs multiscale experiments, including high-resolution digital image correlation to capture microstructural information and grain-level strain fields, linking meso-scale phenomena to continuum-level deformations. This work advances physics-based modeling by connecting dislocation-level mechanisms to component failure. Key research areas include microstructural effects on fracture and fatigue, deformation mechanisms in additively manufactured materials, deformation twinning, creep in titanium alloys, fatigue crack growth, and tribology of high-entropy alloys.