• Assistant Professor, Mechanical Engineering
  • Donna Walker Faculty Fellow
Astrid Layton

Educational Background

  • Ph.D, Mechanical Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology — 2014
  • B.S., Mechanical Engineering, Minor in Studio Arts, University of Pittsburgh — 2009

Research Interests

    • Sustainable and Resilient System Design
    • Bio-Inspired Design
    • Systems and Systems of Systems
    • Circular Economy
    • Industrial Ecology
    • Ecological Network Analysis
    • Human Networks including e.g. industrial resource and manufacturing networks, complex energy systems, supply chains, and water distribution networks

Awards & Honors

  • NSF CAREER Award - 2024
  • Open Educational Resources Award, Texas A&M’s Student Government Association - 2024
  • Industrial Advisory Council’s Outstanding Undergraduate Teaching Award, J. Mike Walker ’66 Department of Mechanical Engineering - 2024
  • Wiley Top Downloaded Article, Systems Engineering journal paper (DOI: 10.1002/sys.21598) - 2022 & 2023
  • Faculty Excellence Award - Teaching, College of Engineering, Texas A&M University - 2023
  • Peggy L. and Charles Brittan ’65 Outstanding Undergraduate Teaching Award, J. Mike Walker ’66 Department of Mechanical Engineering - 2021
  • Best Paper Award CIE-SEIKM at the ASME 2020 International Design Engineering Technical Conference: A. Chatterjee, R. Malak, A. Layton. “Exploring a Bio-Inspired System of Systems Resilience vs. Affordability Tradespace.” - 2020
  • Finalist (top 8) for the Leo Best Paper Award at the 2019 CIRP Life Cycle Engineering Conference: C. Brehm, A. Layton. “Designing eco-industrial parks in a nested structure to mimic mutualistic ecological networks.” - 2019
  • 2nd place, 2016 Graedel Best Paper by a junior author, Journal of Industrial Ecology: A. Layton, B. Bras, M. Weissburg. “Industrial Ecosystems and Food Webs: An expansion and update of existing data for eco-industrial parks and understanding the ecological food webs they wish to mimic.” - 2017

Selected Publications

  • H. Huang, Z. Mao, V. Panyam, A. Layton, K. Davis. (2023) “Ecological Robustness- Oriented Grid Network Design for Resilience Against Multi Hazards." IEEE Transactions on Power Systems. doi: 10.1109/TPWRS.2023.3262501
  • A. Chatterjee, C. Brehm, A. Layton. (2021) “Evaluating Benefits of Ecologically-inspired Nested Architectures for Industrial Symbiosis.” Resources, Conservation & Recycling, 167. doi: 10.1016/j.resconrec.2021.105423
  • A. Chatterjee, R. Malak, A. Layton (2021) "Exploring System of Systems Resilience Versus Affordability Trade-Space Using a Bio-Inspired Metric," Journal of Computing and Information Science in Engineering, 21(5): 1-13. doi: 10.1115/1.4050288
  • C. Brehm and A. Layton (2021) "Nestedness in eco-industrial networks: exploring linkage distribution to promote sustainable industrial growth," Journal of Industrial Ecology, 25: 205-218. doi: 10.1111/jiec.13057
  • T. Dave and A. Layton (2020) "Designing Ecologically-Inspired Robustness into a Water Distribution Network," Journal of Cleaner Production, 254(1): 120057. doi: 10.1016/j.jclepro.2020.120057