John Berger

John Berger

Dean of Energy and Materials Programs
Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering

Dr. Berger has a BS in Civil (Structural) Engineering and an MS and PhD in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Maryland, College Park. Dr. Berger’s primary research interests are in the mechanical behavior and fracture of materials. 

More specifically, he has been engaged in research concerning dynamic crack growth and crack arrest in brittle and ductile materials; analytical and computational tools for analysis of anisotropic solids; elastic wave-based models for the nondestructive evaluation of cylindrically anisotropic solids; and numerical/experimental studies of deformation and fracture in functionally graded materials. Most recently, Dr. Berger has been involved with chemo-elastic mechanics in lithium-ion batteries, fuel cells, and transport membranes. He spent five years on the staff of the Fracture and Deformation Division of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), has held faculty positions at Notre Dame and the University of Alaska, and has been at Colorado School of Mines since 1994. Dr. Berger served as Department Head for Mechanical Engineering from 2017-2020, and is currently Dean of Energy and Materials Programs at Mines.