Academic Credentials
  • Ph.D., Mechanical Engineering, Northeastern University, 2012
  • M.S., Mechanical Engineering, Northeastern University, 2008
  • B.S., Mechanical Engineering, University of Tehran, Iran, 2004
Licenses & Certifications
  • Professional Engineer, New York, #101283
  • Professional Engineer Mechanical, Texas, #150246
  • Six Sigma Green Belt Certification (CSSGB)
Academic Appointments
  • e-Instructor, Department of Mechanical Engineering, MIT, 2012
  • Lecturer, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Northeastern University, 2010
Professional Honors
  • NSF CMMI "Civil, Mechanical, and Manufacturing Innovation" Student Award, 2011
  • 11th U.S. National Congress on Computational Mechanics Student Award, 2011
  • Joseph Ferretti Academic Excellence Fellowship, Northeastern University, 2010
  • 10th U.S. National Congress on Computational Mechanics Student Award, 2009
Professional Affiliations
  • American Society of Mechanical Engineering (ASME)
  • Society of Experimental Mechanics (SEM)
  • American Physical Society (APS)

Dr. Ajdari is a licensed professional mechanical engineer who specializes in failure analysis and design assessment of mechanical systems and industrial equipment, with an emphasis on safety and regulatory compliance. His extensive experience includes utilizing simulation methods and experimental design to evaluate product robustness, reliability, and compliance, and to determine the cause of failures when they occur during development or in the field.

Dr. Ajdari's expertise spans both litigation and non-litigation failure analyses assessing the underlying root cause of reported matters. His expertise has been applied to failure and design analyses across multiple industries including energy storage and batteries, medical devices, consumer products, defense/military applications, boilers & pressure vessels, industrial heat exchangers, oil and gas industry, railroad industry, and automotive industry. Dr. Ajdari has experience in component design compliance with relevant specifications, codes, standards, regulations, and fitness-for-service (such as API 579, ASME Boiler and Pressure Vessel Code), structural assessments including welds and bolted connections, thermal evaluations, fatigue and crack-propagation analysis, and crash impact simulations.

Prior to joining Exponent, Dr. Ajdari served as a Senior Engineer at DePuy Synthes Spine (a Johnson & Johnson Company), supporting product development, and sustaining efforts related to spine implants and surgical devices. He is also familiar with regulatory design requirements for medical devices, explicitly, verification and validation efforts. During his tenure at GE Energy Storage (2014-2017), Dr. Ajdari led design and development of GE battery products, focusing on thermal management, and cooling system for Li-ion and high temperature sodium metal battery systems. His Green Belt Six-Sigma certification recognized his work addressing premature battery cell failure due to glass seal cracks.

Dr. Ajdari holds a PhD in Mechanical Engineering and has completed postdoctoral fellowships at MIT and Northwestern University. His research covered diverse topics, including high performance nanoparticle rubber composites for tire compound, investigating instability and deformation localization in thin elastic shells, structural assessment of reinforced concrete chimneys subject to an uncontrolled fire, and designing structures with superior and tailorable mechanical properties.

Dr. Ajdari actively contributes to the fields and his scientific publications include 21 peer-reviewed journal publications with over 2,100+ citations (as of Jun 2024), and over 54+ conference proceedings and presentations, and 2 patent disclosures. He currently serves as a primary member of ASME V&V60 subcommittee on Verification and Validation of Computational Modeling in Energy Systems.