Ellen Arruda

About

Ellen Arruda is a Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Michigan and serves as the Tim Manganello/BorgWarner Department Chair in Mechanical Engineering. Her research focuses on the mechanical behavior of materials including polymers, elastomers, and soft tissue, as well as tissue engineering of tendon and muscle constructs. She is involved in constitutive modeling of growth, remodeling, and functional adaptation in soft tissue, along with deformation mechanisms in polymers and crystal transformation mechanisms in semi-crystalline polymers. Her work also includes high strain rate testing of polymers and elastomers for crashworthiness applications in automotive engineering. Arruda holds a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, earned in 1992, and has a background in engineering mechanics and engineering science from Pennsylvania State University. Her research contributions have been recognized through numerous awards and honors, including membership in the College of Fellows of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering, the A.C. Eringen Medal from the Society of Engineering Science, and the Nadai Medal from ASME. She has been distinguished for her outstanding career in biomechanics, materials, and engineering, and has been actively involved in advancing manufacturing education and space structures research.

Research topics

• Medicine
• Materials science
• Engineering
• Anatomy
• Composite material
• Computer Science
• Data Mining
• Artificial Intelligence
• Structural engineering
• Biology

Selected publications

• The Role of the Non-Collagenous Extracellular Matrix in Tendon and Ligament Mechanical Behavior: A Review

  Journal of Biomechanical Engineering · 2021 · 56 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding

  Tendon is a connective tissue that transmits loads from muscle to bone, while ligament is a similar tissue that stabilizes joint articulation by connecting bone to bone. The 70-90% of tendon and ligament's extracellular matrix (ECM) is composed of a hierarchical collagen structure that provides resistance to deformation primarily in the fiber direction, and the remaining fraction consists of a variety of non-collagenous proteins, proteoglycans, and glycosaminoglycans (GAGs) whose mechanical role…

  DOI

• Inference of deformation mechanisms and constitutive response of soft material surrogates of biological tissue by full-field characterization and data-driven variational system identification

  Journal of the Mechanics and Physics of Solids · 2021 · 54 citations

  DOI

• Constitutive modeling of the anterior cruciate ligament bundles and patellar tendon with full-field methods

  Journal of the Mechanics and Physics of Solids · 2021 · 37 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Optimization of slenderness ratio and visco-elastic material properties in a 2D hybrid auxetic lattice for enhanced impact mitigation

  International Journal of Solids and Structures · 2025-09-19 · 2 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Tear growth mechanisms in high-grade bursal-sided partial thickness tears in the rotator cuff measured with full volume magnetic resonance imaging methods

  Acta Biomaterialia · 2025-07-31 · 2 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  In this work, we evaluate the mechanical response of rotator cuff tendons with high-grade partial thickness tears through a recently developed full volume measurement technique that resolves through-thickness behavior. As opposed to traditional strain measurement methods, which examine surfaces of the tendon or localized two-dimensional regions, we have probed three-dimensional strains including internal locations via magnetic resonance imaging. Differences between the intact and torn states hav…

  PublisherDOI

Recent grants

• Virtual Fields Methods for Soft Musculoskeletal Tissue Characterization and Model Validation

  NSF · $429k · 2015–2018

Frequent coauthors

• Krishna Garikipati

  43 shared

• Anthony M. Waas

  University of Michigan–Ann Arbor

  40 shared

• Sofía D. Merajver

  University of Michigan–Ann Arbor

  35 shared

• Lisa M. Larkin

  University of Michigan–Ann Arbor

  34 shared

• Alejandra C. Ventura

  33 shared

• Silvia Escudero

  32 shared

• Devin T. Rosenthal

  31 shared

• Zhifen Wu

  Fujian Medical University

  30 shared

Labs

• Arruda GroupPI

Awards & honors

• Member, College of Fellows, American Institute for Medical a…
• A.C. Eringen Medal, Society of Engineering Science (2021)
• Nadai Medal, ASME (2019)
• James R. Rice Medal, Society of Engineering Science (2018)
• Member, National Academy of Engineering (2018)

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