Dr. Adams is the Daniel F. Flowers Professor, Distinguished Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, and Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Vanderbilt University as well as Associate Provost responsible for advancing institutional efforts to secure mega awards from external sponsors.

He studies the health of materials and machines using sensors to reveal hidden signatures.

Specifically, his group pioneered the development of nonlinear approaches for structural health monitoring to realize intelligent structures that are self-aware to prevent failure in energy, security, and manufacturing applications. He founded and co-directs the Laboratory for Systems Integrity and Reliability, a 20,000 sq. ft. facility that is uniquely equipped and staffed for observing how engineered systems behave in realistic experiments at a full scale making it possible to bridge research discoveries to solutions that address societal grand challenges.