Dr. Dawson’s primary area of research is the mechanics and materials science associated with deformation processes of polycrystalline materials. The general aim of the research is to integrate modern constitutive theories for the mechanical behavior of these materials into rigorous mechanics frameworks and to solve the resulting systems of equations by numerical techniques. The end goal is a more fundamental understanding of the relation between a material's microstructure state and its derivative mechanical properties. Recent efforts include the application of state-variable constitutive models that quantify strain hardening, texture evolution, and damage growth into finite element based numerical formulations. Application areas include metal forming, solid-state welding, fatigue and accelerated property evaluation. Special attention is given to the coordination of in situ diffraction experiments and finite element simulations to investigate modeling of behavior at the scale of individual crystals.

In graduate school Dawson specialized in solid mechanics and civil engineering, after an undergraduate major in mechanical and aerospace engineering. He was an associate engineer at Westinghouse Advanced Reactors Division in 1972-73, and a member of the technical staff at Sandia National Laboratories from 1976 through 1979, when he came to Cornell. In 1984 Dawson was named a Presidential Young Investigator by the National Science Foundation, and in 1985 he won the Young Manufacturing Engineer Award of the Society of Manufacturing Engineers. In 1985-86 he spent a year at Los Alamos National Laboratory as a visiting scientist working with members of the Center for Materials Science.