Johnathon (John) Barbish, Ph.D.

  • Visiting Assistant Professor in Engineering at James Madison University, 2024-Present
  • Instructor in Mechanical Engineering at Virginia Tech, 2023-2024
  • Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from Virginia Tech, 2018-2023
  • B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Virginia Tech, 2014-2018
  • B.S. in Physics from Virginia Tech, 2014-2018

I’m Johnathon Barbish, a new visiting assistant professor in the Department of Engineering at James Madison University. I often go by my nickname John. I’m currently learning new teaching methods and pedagogy while at James Madison University. I am interested in many aspects of engineering, physics, and mathematics, with a special enjoyment from constructing and developing mathematical models of real systems. This has developed into my research into understanding complex systems. These complex systems include physics such as solid mechanics, fluid mechanics, and nonlinear dynamics. I use tools from statistical mechanics and dynamical systems theory to investigate these systems.

I am interested in developing new collaborations on research and/or teaching pedagogy. If you are interested, please feel free to email me!

Other pages

  • Publications - summaries and links to my research publications with collaborators
  • Teaching - an overview of my teaching experiences and teaching philosophy
  • Other Interests - some miscellaneous projects I’ve done which I wanted to share
  • CV - a copy of a recent CV of mine

Materials and Advanced Mechanics Tutorials

I’ve developed a series of instructional videos demonstrating how to use perform common experiments and preparation for materials testing and characterization. I’ve compiled all of these tutorials into a playlist:

Fun Animations

An animation of the fluid flow around a beam as it oscillates up and down and returns to equilibrium. Part of my Ph.D. research.