Senior Manager and Associate Director
Morad Behandish is a Senior Manager and Associate Director at SRI’s Future Concepts Division (FCD), formerly known as the Palo Alto Research Center (PARC). He has built up and managed the Computational Design area since 2020, a team of world-class research scientists and software engineers with expertise in engineering design, computational geometry, multi-physics and multi-scale modeling, physics-constrained AI, and digital manufacturing. Morad and his team’s mission is to develop the next generation of computer-aided technologies (CAx) at the intersection of product design, computer science, manufacturing, and AI, with a vision of changing the world through democratization of design — bridging ideas to things order-of-magnitude faster, cheaper, and better, while making novices as productive as experts, faced with unprecedented complexity.
Morad also serves as the Research Director for Design and Digital Manufacturing, one of the three strategic initiatives at FCD, where he oversees a cross-disciplinary R&D portfolio. In this role, he has reported directly to the Head of Research at PARC (now President of FCD), worked closely with Xerox 3D printing business unit leadership, and played a key role in driving strategy, allocating resources, building IP pipeline, and establishing external partnerships.
Morad’s background is geometric and physical modeling for analysis, design, and process planning for advanced manufacturing and assembly. He has successfully acquired funding and led execution of projects in multiple DARPA programs such as AI Research Associate (AIRA), Computable Models (CompMods), and Multi-objective Engineering and Testing of Alloy Structures (METALS) as PI or co-PI. Prior to his leadership role, he was a critical individual contributor to DARPA Transformative Design (TRADES), Fundamental Design (FUN), and other projects. Examples of his technical contributions were developing software components for design optimization and process planning with combined additive and subtractive manufacturing, physics-compatible AI representations for scientific discovery, and multi-physics compiler tools to democratize digital twin development by non-computational physicists.
Morad received his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering (Best Dissertation and multiple Best Paper award winner) and M.Sc. in Computer Science and Engineering from the University of Connecticut. In addition to his business responsibilities, has also served as the Executive Committee member of Solid Modeling Association, several Conference and Program Chair roles in major geometric modeling and design engineering conferences, and an Editor of the Elsevier’s Journal of CAD.
