Dr Cirak's research is focused on computational modelling and analysis of light-weight structures originating from a wide range of applications, including structural engineering, aerospace and marine engineering. Specific areas of research emphasis include: advanced discretization methods for integrated design, optimisation and analysis of solids and structural components such as beams, membranes and shells, computational fluid-structure interaction with application to micro-air-vehicle design and insect flight, and mechanical modelling and computational analysis of large-scale structural membranes, such as parachutes and inflatable decelerators for outer-space applications. In terms of computational methods development two overriding themes throughout our research are: the integration of, traditionally disparate, computational analysis and geometry using immersed and b-spline based finite element discretization techniques, the development of scalable computational methods for simulating challenging engineering problems on high-end parallel computers.