MechSE News Archive

This prize, administered by the Technology Entrepreneur Center in the College of Engineering, is awarded on an annual basis to an undergraduate or graduate student who has created or improved a product or process, applied a technology in a new way, redesigned a system, or demonstrated remarkable inventiveness in other ways. Info session Wed., Oct. 28, 5-6 pm, 162 Noyes.

Two local companies, with ties to MechSE, have emerged as semi-finalists in the 2009 Innovate Illinois competition to be named ‘Most Innovative Illinois Company.’ Cbana Laboratories and SFM Technology, both founded by UIUC faculty, will advance to the final round in Chicago on November 10.

Researchers have developed a method for creating high-resolution images of nanostructures and particles that uses electrons instead of visible light. MechSE graduate student Pratik Chaturvedi and his adviser, Assistant Professor Nicholas Fang, described the new imaging technology, which could be used to detect miniscule levels of toxins and other molecules, in a September 2009 issue of the American Chemical Society’s ACS Nano Journal.

Professor Martin Ostoja-Starzewski recently published a book, Thermoelasticity with Finite Wave Speeds, which focuses on dynamic thermoelasticity theories free of the classical paradox of infinite propagation speeds of thermal signals in Fourier-type heat conduction.

Can a wristwatch save your life? Researchers at Illinois and Princeton University think so. Their idea for a real-time health monitoring wristwatch that could speed emergency response during emergency medical situations via the existing cell phone network was one of 16 "big ideas" selected for Google's 10th Anniversary Project Contest. It was the only proposal in the health category to be selected.

William Fortino II (BS TAM 1996) talked with Engineering Mechanics students this September about opportunities in the microelectronics industry. A member of MechSE’s Alumni Board since 2005, Fortino works for Cabot Microelectronics Corporation in Aurora, Illinois.

Scholarship and fellowship recipients, parents and donors attended a special recognition luncheon hosted by MechSE on Friday, September 25. Select news story for a full list of scholarship and fellowship winners.

A materials sciences professor affiliated with MechSE and a former postdoctoral research associate were recently selected to receive MacArthur Foundation “genius” grants worth $500,000 apiece. John Rogers, the Lee J. Flory-Founder Chair in Engineering Innovation and a professor of materials science and engineering at the University of Illinois, and Lakshminarayanan Mahadevan, Lola England de Valpine Professor of Applied mathematics in Harvard University’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, were two of 24 researchers nationwide to be named MacArthur Foundation Fellows for 2009.

Professor Narayana Aluru was invested as the Richard W. Kritzer Distinguished Professor on October 17. Since joining Illinois as an assistant professor in 1998, he has significantly advanced the understanding of physics at the micro- and nanoscale--particularly with respect to micro- and nanoelectromechanical systems (MEMS and NEMS) and nanofluidics. He has published more than 100 journal articles on multiphysics and multiscale computational analysis of micro- and nano-devices, while developing advanced computational methods and novel theories for non-continuum effects in mechanical, electrostatic and fluidic energy domains at small scales.

Professor Alexander Vakakis was invested as the W. Grafton and Lillian B. Wilkins Professor on October 17. Vakakis co-directs the University of Illinois’ Linear and Nonlinear Dynamics and Vibrations Laboratory (LNDVL) with Professor Lawrence Bergman of the Department of Aerospace Engineering. Vakakis’ current research activities include implementing passive nonlinear targeted energy transfer phenomena in designs for aeroelastic instability (flutter) suppression, disturbance mitigation in spacecrafts, seismic mitigation, and vibration and shock isolation of mechanical and structural components.

Professor Mark Shannon was quoted in an article titled, "11 Great Things to Do with Sewage," that appeared in the September 21st issue of the weekly online newsletter, Greentech Media. The article mentioned that Shannon is raising funds to build a prototype anaerobic digester that will convert sewage into re-useable water, methane and a mineral sludge manufacturers could use to make bricks and/or other products.

Six student society representatives atttended MechSE’s first Student Leadership Council meeting to discuss upcoming activities for 2009-2010.

Want a chance to see Illinois' solar-powered Gable Home before it heads to Washington D.C. for the October 2009 Solar Decathlon Competition? The Gable Home will be open to the public from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Saturday, September 12, and Sunday, September 13. Students are still putting final touches on the home, which features custom heating, air-conditioning and water heating systems designed by MechSE senior design teams. They are currently testing the home's controls system and HVAC, building furniture and finishing the porch area.

MechSE researchers in the Center of Advanced Materials for Purification of Water with Systems (WaterCAMPWS) and the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE) have signed a three-year collaborative research agreement with the newly established King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) in Saudi Arabia. Under the agreement, KAUST will provide $5 million in funds to be shared by researchers at both U of I and KAUST for research of mutual interest in the areas of environmental sciences and engineering and water desalination and reuse.

Two MechSE emeritus professors have received top awards from the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE). Wilbert F. Stoecker received the 2009 Louise and Bill Holladay Distinguished Fellow Award for continuous preeminence in home heating and cooling research. John C. Chato received the 2009 Distinguished 50-Year Member Award for outstanding service during the more than 50 years he has been a member.

The September 1 issue of the Daily Herald featured a story about a novel bicycle adaptation developed by MechSE Emeritus Professor Richard Klein. The adaptation helps children with disabilities learn how to ride a bike without training wheels. More than 80 percent of the children who use the bikes through the Lose the Training Wheels program learn to ride a bike by the end of the week.

This August, a van full of donated robots landed graduate students Ken Heinz and Drew Coverdill a role in ABC’s TV show Extreme Makeover Home Edition. The show had come to Philo, Illinois, to film thousands of volunteers as they transformed a local family’s home into the home of their dreams. When a generous company donated about a dozen robots to the project, no one knew what to do with them. So, the design producer of the show started dialing numbers at the University of Illinois. The trail of phone calls eventually led to MechSE graduate students Ken Heinz and Drew Coverdill.

Researchers have developed a new way to print assembled arrays of ultrathin, ultrasmall, inorganic light-emitting diodes (LEDs) onto flat or flexible substrates ranging from glass to plastic and rubber. The new method, described in the August 21 issue of the journal Science, could be used to produce lighting and display systems that are not only flexible, but also mostly transparent, such as high-resolution home theater displays, wearable health monitors and biomedical imaging devices. Two of the collaborators include MechSE professor Placid Ferreira and graduate student Paulius Elvikus.

Henry Petroski (MSTAM 1964, PhDTAM 1968) was recently named a Distinguished Member of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE). The Duke University professor was recognized with the society’s highest honor based on his advancement of the practice of civil engineering and civil engineering education; his achievements as a renowned educator, author, researcher and lecturer; and for his efforts to increase the public’s understanding of the role of the engineer through his many published works.

A retractable safety awning designed last spring by four MechSE seniors won second place in the 2009 Safety Products Student Design Challenge sponsored by the Safety and Protective Products Division of Industrial Fabrics Association International and the Narrow Fabrics Institute. The seniors designed and tested the retractable awning, which they built using a high-strength textile commonly used in bullet-proof vests, cut resistant gloves, yacht sails and hurricane protection curtains. Pound for pound, the fabric is 15 times as strong as steel, yet light enough to float on water. The design team's data indicated that the advanced fabric could provide protection from an 11 pound object falling from a height of 100 feet, protecting pedestrians outside high-rise buildings from falling ice and other objects.

Twenty-six incoming MechSE freshmen women learned about coop experiences, research opportunities, senior design projects, postgraduate training and future job prospects during a welcome luncheon for female Engineering Mechanics (EM) and Mechanical Engineering (ME) freshmen held Tuesday, August 18. Sponsored by the College of Engineering's Women in Engineering (WIE) Program, the luncheon was hosted by Professor James Phillips, MechSE's Associate Head for Undergraduate Programs. Senior Design Project Coordinator and Lecturer Emad Jassim discussed senior design projects, and EM student Monica Yang talked about undergraduate research.

There's a new student chapter on campus. The American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) is now a Registered Student Organization at Illinois, making it the 18th student chapter nationally. It will start recruiting members in Fall 2009. ASEE furthers engineering education by promoting excellence in instruction, research, public service and practice.

Chao Zhu (PhDME 1991) has been named a fellow in the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME). A professor of mechanical engineering at the New Jersey Institute of Technology, Zhu has made experimental discoveries and advances in theoretical modeling of gas-solid multiphase flows. He is the co-author of 'Principles of Gas-Solid Flows,' one of the most influential text books on the subject. He received his undergraduate education at Tsinghua University in Beijing, China, and a PhD in mechanical engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, in 1991.

A groundbreaking finding that tension is required for neurotransmission (the signaling of nerve cells needed for learning and memory) was the Editor's Choice in the August 11 issue of Science Signaling. Details of the study by MechSE professor Taher Saif and University of Miami biologist Akira Chiba appeared in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences last month. News has spread rapidly since then via such venues as Medical News Today, First Science, Life Sciences World, Red Orbit and Nano Techwire.

Professor Anthony Jacobi has been elected a Fellow in the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE). The MechSE professor has made numerous technical contributions in air-side heat transfer, condensate and frost management. His innovative designs for experimental facilities and his careful measurements have provided new models to predict heat and mass transfer, while his definitive multi-year studies have defined the state of the art in flat multiport (multichannel) tube heat exchangers. Jacobi helped pioneer the analysis of evaporation phenomena in small-diameter channels, and his work on falling film heat exchangers has spanned more than a decade. His leadership cultivated teamwork, organization and student/faculty participation in the ACRC, a research center that meets the needs of approximately 30 sponsoring companies.

MechSE assistant professor Prashant Mehta and three other researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, recently received a three-year, $1.03 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy to tackle complex questions regarding energy markets. Their research will allow for a deeper understanding of the competitive interplay between firms, power marketers and consumers in the face of uncertainty in both demand and resource availability. Ultimately, the work will contribute toward the development of the smart grid---a system that is expected to lead to increased efficiency, lower power costs, and greater reliability.

Professor Naira Hovakimyan will give the plenary address at the International Association of Science and Technology for Development (IASTED) conference this August in Honolulu, Hawaii. In her talk, Hovakimyan will discuss the Theory of Fast and Robust Adaptation she and her group developed and are now using to help Boeing, NASA and other partners develop micro unmanned air vehicles, an autopilot design for aerial refueling, hypersonic vehicles and other cutting-edge aerospace technologies.

This July, the family of Mark Prasse (ME 1998) established a scholarship fund in his honor. Supported by a $25,000 endowment, the fund will provide scholarships to undergraduate students in the Department of Mechanical Science and Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Mark received his Bachelor of Science degree from Illinois in 1998.

A NanoCEMMS summer workshop for middle and high school teachers made local television news on Wednesday, July 22. The WCIA news story featured video footage of teachers in the cleanroom and talked with them about the program, which introduced them to the latest advances in nanoscience. The teachers workshop is just one of many outreach programs sponsored by the National Science Foundation-funded Center for Nanoscale Chemical-Electrical-Mechanical Manufacturing Systems located in MechSE.

Every time a neuron sends a signal - to move a muscle or form a memory, for example - tiny membrane-bound compartments, called vesicles, dump neurotransmitters into the synapse between the cells. This week, researchers at MechSE and the University of Miami report that this process, which is fundamental to the workings of the nervous system, relies on a simple mechanical reality: Tension in the axon of the presynaptic neuron is required. Without this tension, the researchers found, the vesicles that must haul their chemical cargo to the synapse for neuronal signaling would instead disperse. Their findings appear this week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

An article by Assistant Professor Amy Wagoner Johnson and colleagues at the University of Wisconsin-Madison was recently dubbed a hot paper by editors at Wiley InterScience Journals for its importance in the rapidly evolving field of biomechanics.

Professor Brian Thomas was elected to ASM International's College of Fellows. Fellows of the society, which serves the materials science and engineering community, are selected for their oustanding contributions to research, education and other advances that improve quality of life.

Martin Ostoja-Starzewski has joined the Editorial Board of Acta Mechanica, a leading journal in theoretical and applied mechanics since 1965.

Associate Professor William King is one of 88 of the nation's brightest young engineers selected to attend the national Academy of Engineering's (NAE) 15th annual U.S. Frontiers of Engineering symposium. Engineers ages 30 to 45 who are performing exceptional engineering research and technical work in a variety of disicplines attend the two-and-a-half-day event. This year's participants were nominated by fellow engineers or organizations in industry, academia and government. They were chosen from approximately 240 applicants.

The Chicago Tribune recently featured an article about students at Thornridge High School in Dolton, Illinois, who won a $10,000 cash prize in the Lexus Eco Challenge by turning used cooking oil into biodiesel and promoting its use in the local community. Their physics teacher, Brian Sievers (BSME '91, MSME '98), started the "biodiesel club" to teach his students how they could have a positive effect on the environment.

Professor Huseyin Sehitoglu was the 2009 Fatigue Lecturer at the May ASTM International conference in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. During his presentation, Sehitoglu summarized advances made during the past century and discussed the challenges that remain with respect to understanding materials behavior in severe environments. He also highlighted some of the new simulation techniques and experimental tools that are being developed to address these challenges.

On May 22, researchers from NASA's Aviation Safety Program at Langley Research Center and Dryden Flight Research Center visited Professor Naira Hovakimyan's research group to discuss plans for installing an innovative adaptive control system into NASA's GTM and other research aircraft models, including the F-18 Hornet, the Grumman X-29 and the Boeing X-48B (an experimental blended wing body plane).

MechSE researchers have developed a novel acoustic superlens that focuses sound waves in much the same way that an optical superlens focuses light waves. In the May 15 issue of Physical Review Letters, the researchers (graduate student Shu Zhang; her adviser, Assistant Professor Nicholas Fang; and Leilei Yin, a microscopist at the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology) described their design and test results for an ultrasonic metamaterial lens that focuses 60kHz (~2cm wavelength) sound waves under water. The lens is made up of subwavelength elements and is therefore potentially more compact than phononic lenses that operate in the same frequency range.Made of metamaterial, the acoustic superlens technology, if improved, could lead to an acoustic cloaking device that might hide submarines and other objects from sonar.

A collaborative effort between MechSE professors Daniel Tortorelli and Alexander Vakakis and researchers at the California Institute of Technology was recently awarded almost $1.5 million per year in funding from the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) via its Multidisciplinary University Research Inititative (MURI) program. The award will provide five years of support for the CalTech MechSE project, which involves the design of adaptive load mitigating materials using nonlinear stress wave tailoring.

A proposal by researchers at the University of Illinois was recently selected as one of 71 university research projects to receive funding from the U.S. Department of Energy's Nuclear Energy University Program (NEUP). All told, the 71 projects selected will receive approximately $44 million over three years to advance new nuclear technologies in support of the nation's energy goals.

Associate Professor William King was selected to receive the 2009 Bergles-Rohsenow Young Investigator Award in Heat Transfer from the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. The award honors engineers under the age of 36 who have demonstrated the potential to make significant contributions to the field of heat transfer.

A stone-rejecting device for combines was just one of 28 senior design projects presented by teams of ME seniors on May 5 at Levis Faculty Center. Other presentations featured systems to reduce energy consumption in three buildings on campus, a chainless bicycle that works via hydraulics, a safety awning to protect people from falling objects, an ultra fuel-efficient vehicle, a weed seed killing device for the USDA, an improved cycle ergometer for a local dialysis center and many others.

ME senior James Pikul (right) received the College of Engineering's Lisle Abbot Rose Memorial Award during the May 1st 2009 MechSE Awards Banquet and Honorary Society Initiation. Thirty MechSE undergraduates and three graduate students received awards at the event (see awards page), and an additional 30 students were initiated into the mechanical engineering honor society, Pi Tau Sigma.

Senior Alexander Millar (left) was one of eight MechSE students to receive a Broze Tablet award from the University of Illinois during the 2009 MechSE Awards Banquet this May. Other 2009 recipients of the award for sustained academic achievement include Matthew Goelz, Nicholas Musser, James Pikul, Zhan Fan Quek, Gregory Schebler, Jonathan Smith and Hui Wei Yeo. Their names will be inscribed on a bronze tablet that will be hung in the Main Library.

Associate Professor Jonathan Freund has been elected to the Society of Engineering Science (SES) Board of Directors. SES promotes interactions between various disciplines in engineering, sciences, and mathematics. Members of its board serve three-year terms. Freund's research in fluid mechanics is highly interdisciplinary. Current activities include jet noise control, simulation and analysis of aeroacoustic resonances in jet engine test cells, tissue injury during shock-wave lithotripsy, the dynamics of atomically thin liquid films, the flow of large numbers of blood cells in the microcirculation, simulation of advanced solid rocket motors, thermal transport at crystal lattice boundaries, self-healing hydrodynamics in autonomic composites, and ion machining of semiconductor materials.

Dr. Donald Gall (BSME 1956), founding president and chief executive officer of Phoenix-based Omega Legal Systems, spoke about the role fundamentals, preparation, timing, advice and luck play in personal achievement during a special seminar for mechanical engineering students on Wednesday, April 29.

The spring 2009 issue of the National Research Defense Council's Onearth magazine features a cover story about Jigar Shah (BSME 1996), a devoted environmentalist and champion of market economics who built North America's largest and most successful provider of solar energy. The article, "How to Sell the Sun," describes how Shah made solar energy more viable by allowing customers to buy solar power without investing in expensive equipment.

Researchers at MechSE and the Department of Molecular and Integrative Physiology at the University of Illinois have developed a membrane-penetrating nanoneedle for the targeted delivery of one or more molecules into the cytoplasm or the nucleus of living cells. In addition to ferrying tiny amounts of cargo, the nanoneedle can also be used as an electrochemical probe and as an optical biosensor.

Five MechSE alumni received 2009 Distinguished Alumni Awards during the department's annual Awards Banquet held in conjunction with the Alumni Board meeting on Friday, April 24th. They include: Joseph P. Gallagher (MSTAM 1965, PhDTAM 1968), Alten F. (Skip) Grandt, Jr. (BSGE 1968, MSTAM 1968, PhDTAM 1971), David L. McDowell (MSME 1981, PhDME 1983), Paul R. Predick (BSAE 1972, MSME 1973) and Kent F. Schien (BSME 1981). The awards recognize alumni who have served in a professional, technical or civic capacity that reflects honorably on the department and the University of Illinois.

Members of the mechanical engineering honor society Pi Tau Sigma grilled burgers, bratwursts and hot dogs this April on the Bardeen Quad to raise money for "Relay for Life," the American Cancer Society's overnight run/walk fundraising event.

MechSE Students who attended the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) Student Professional Development Conference this April in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, returned to Illinois with a $200 award. The University of Illinois' ASME student chapter won second place for being one of the most active student sections in the region.

This April, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) elected three MechSE professors to the grade of ASME Fellow: Professor K. Jimmy Hsia, Professor Petros Sofronis and Professor Daniel Tortorelli. ASME Fellows are elected based on significant engineering achievements and contributions to the engineering profession.

A novel acoustic superlens developed by Assistant Professor Nicholas Fang was featured this April in MIT Technology Review's physics arXiv. Made of metamaterial, the acoustic superlens focuses sound waves in much the same way that an optical superlens focuses light waves. The technology, if improved, could lead to an acoustic cloaking device that might hide submarines and other objects from sonar.

The inaugural Illinois Marathon this April 11 in Urbana-Champaign, included several MechSE faculty, students and alumni. Among the top 10 finishers was Professor Harley Johnson who crossed the finish line in 2 hours, 41 minutes and 28 seconds. Other marathoners from the MechSE community included senior Mickey Mangan and alumni Thomas Korder and Ben Newell. The marathon, half-marathon and 5K running events drew more then 8,000 participants.

ME sophomore Bradley Tran is the first engineering student to serve as president of the student body at the University of Illinois. The former treasurer of the Illinois Student Senate was elected by fellow senators on Thursday, April 9, and will begin his new term as student body president on Thursday, April 16.

MechSE Professor Brian G. Thomas was invested as the C. J. Gauthier Professor in Mechanical Science and Engineering. His research in the continuous casting of steel has advanced the state of knowledge about the way product defects form, how processing can minimize such defects, how quality can be monitored and diagnosed, and how the continuous steel casting process can be controlled. He effectively combined computational modeling research on continuous casting validated by comparing the results with plant measurements. His models have since gained widespread acceptance in the steel industry.

Mark Shannon, MechSE professor and director of the Center of Advanced Materials for the Purification of Water with Systems (WaterCAMPWS), presented his vision for the future of water purification during the National Academy of Engineering's regional meeting April 2 at the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology. Co-sponsored by the NAE and the College of Engineering at the University of Illinois, the meeting targeted one of the NAE's 14 Grand Challenges for engineers in the 21^st century: providing access to clean water.

Norman R. Miller, a retired Osher Lifelong Learning Institute Scholar in the Department of Mechanical Science and Engineering, will be one of 10 university faculty members in the nation to receive the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) International Faculty Adviser Award during the SAE 2008 World Congress, April 20-23.

A team of University of Illinois students organized by ME senior Mickey Mangan (holding microphone in photo) captured second place at this year's national Rube Goldberg Machine Contest, held at Purdue University on March 28. The team had previously won the regional competition with their "Scene of the Crime" machine based on the board game Clue (check out the video of the contraption in operation.) This is the first year an Illinois team entered the contest and the first time a team that is not from Purdue University has advanced to nationals from the region.

Researchers from MechSE and the Department of Geology have shown that cyclonically rotating columnar vortexes, or "volcanic mesocyclones," spontaneously arise from strong volcanic plumes in much the same way that mesocyclones arise during tornadic thunderstorms. The Illinois researchers' findings, published in the March 26 issue of the journal Nature, were obtained by analyzing a 200-year-old report by a sea captain, a stunning photograph of the 2008 eruption of Mount Chaiten, and satellite images of other volcanic eruptions.

Approximately 20,000 visitors attended the University of Illinois' annual Engineering Open House in mid-March. The two-day event featured exhibits, demonstrations and hands-on experiments for all age groups. MechSE exhibits and activites included the ever-popular concrete crushing demonstration, a gigantic smoke ring maker, hands-on fluids lab activities, a Sterling engine display, a penny smasher, a distracted driving demo, sand casting, climbing hexapods, rapid prototyping and the Formula SAE and Mini Baja team cars.

On March 16, several ME seniors visited Milwaukee Electric Tool Corp. headquarters in Brookfield, Wisconsin. The company, which manufactures portable heavy duty electric drills, grinders, hammers, saws, routers, wrenches and other tools, is currently sponsoring two senior design team projects in MechSE.

Professor Norbert Peters, professor and director of the Institut für Technische Mechanik at the Rheinisch-Westfälische Technische Hochschule in Aachen, Germany, was the featured speaker at this year's Arthur Newell Talbot Distinguished Lecture. The international scholar in flame theory, turbulence and turbulent combustion, combustion reduction and pollution reduction, described a new approach he is taking to fine-scale turbulence that involves dissipation elements. Each year the distinguished lecture series, made possible through the generous support of the Talbot family, enriches the learning environment at Illinois by bringing eminent scholars to campus to share their work. This year's lecture was attended by approximately 200 students and faculty.

A research paper by Associate Professor William King and collaborators at the University of Rhode Island was featured this March on the cover of the journal Nanotechnology. In their article, the researchers described their development of a simple batch fabrication process for making 100 nanometer scale heater/thermometers on silicon cantilevers. The process, which combines photolithography and controlled annealing, produces 100-nanometer-wide heater/thermometers that reach a temperature of 500 degrees Celsius in only 56 microseconds and have a maximum temperature that exceeds 700 degrees Celsius.

Don Robins (BSME 1960) is this year's recipient of SAE International's Bill Agnew Award for Outstanding AWIM® Volunteers. The award recognizes volunteers in SAE International's A World in Motion® (AWIM) program who motivate the next generation to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering and math by bringing their experiences into an AWIM classroom.

Petros Sofronis, professor and associate head for engineering mechanics programs at MechSE, was selected to receive the University of Illinois' Campus Award for Excellence in Graduate and Professional Teaching. The award recognizes sustained excellence, positive impacts on learning, innovative approaches and other contributions to improve graduate or professional instruction.

On March 13 and 14, MechSE students will help host the University of Illinois' annual Engineering Open House. The two-day event, which features exhibits, demonstrations and hands-on experiments for all age groups, has been a part of the College of Engineering for more than a century and typically draws approximately 20,000 visitors.

MechSE student exhibits and activites will be located in the Mechanical Engineering and Talbot laboratories. Those in the Mechanical Engineering Laboratory will feature a Sterling engine, a penny smasher, distracted driving, engine display, sand casting, hexapods, rapid prototyping, Formula SAE and Mini Baja team cars, Illini Prosthetics Team, and NanoChallenge: Research for High School Students. Those inTalbot Laboratory will include concrete crushing, fluids lab demonstrations, smoke rings and crazy springs.

More information and an unofficial online version of the visitor's guide are available at the Engineering Open House 2009 Web site.

Professor Armand Beaudoin has been named the recipient of the 2009 BP Award for Innovation in Undergraduate Instruction. The award recognizes innovative approaches to undergraduate engineering and science education-particularly innovative teaching methods and instructional programs that motivate students to learn and appreciate engineering.

William King was one of four associate professors selected by the College of Engineering to receive a 2009 Xerox Award for Faculty Research. The award recognizes outstanding research conducted during the past five years, which for King includes contributions to the thermal analysis of materials at the micrometer and nanometer length scale which have significantly advanced the world's understanding of heat transfer and provided new tools and techniques for pharmaceutical testing and characterization of materials in solar cells and batteries.

Professors Jonathan Freund and Jimmy Hsia were elected to the Academic Senate at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. They will begin their two-year terms in fall 2009, at which time they will join three MechSE faculty already on the senate (professors Ken Christensen, Iwona Jasiuk and Andreas Polycarpou) whose terms expire in August 2010.

Debasish (Deba) Dutta joined Illinois in 2009 as dean of the Graduate College and associate provost. He also holds an appointment in MechSE as the Edward William and Jane Marr Gutsell Professor in the Department of Mechanical Science and Engineering. A scholar-in-residence at the National Academy of Engineering, Dutta leads a national study on the lifelong learning needs of working professionals in the engineering and science fields.

The University of Illinois' Pi Tau Sigma chapter received a 1st Place Outstanding Service Award during the society's national convention in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Pi Tau Sigma is an honorary society for mechanical engineering students that works to foster the high ideals of the engineering profession, promote the professional well being of its members, and encourage the development of leadership skills and civic responsibility. Members participate in scholarship and service programs, MechSE and College of Engineering events and social activities.

Professor William King, an associate professor and Kritzer Faculty Scholar at MechSE, and collaborators at the University of Rhode Island have developed a simple batch fabrication process for making 100 nanometer scale heater/thermometers at reasonably low cost. They described their novel fabrication process, which uses contact photolithography and controlled anneal conditions, in the February 6, 2009 online edition of Nanotechnology. Their work was also featured online in Nanowerk.

ME seniors Laura Fierce and Miguel Guerra were selected to be 2009 Knights of St. Patrick, the highest honor an engineering student can receive at Illinois. Selection is based on leadership, excellence in character, and exceptional contributions to the College of Engineering and its students. Nine individuals were chosen as members of the 2009 class.

Two Illinois professors (MechSE professor William King and Rashid Bashir, Bliss Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering as well as the Department of Bioengineering) are part of an elite team of award-winning biochemists, electrochemists, materials scientists and microsystems experts that will help Advanced Diamond Technologies, Inc. (ADT) develop miniature diamond-based sensors for the real-time detection of water-based chemical and biological agents. The company has been awarded a $4.8 million grant from the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) to develop the devices from its patented nanostructured diamond.

MechSE Professor D. Scott Stewart was invested as the Shao Lee Soo Professor in Mechanical Science and Engineering. Professor Stewart has made significant contributions to theoretical and computational combustion science and detonation theory that have provided answers to fundamental questions in stability theory and detonation front dynamics. His practical and computational modeling contributions to explosives engineering have resulted in theoretical advances that allow scientists to predict and assess the safety, reliability, and performance of high-density explosives more accurately. His seminal findings have appeared in such prestigious publications as Physics of Fluids, the Journal of Computational Physics, and the Journal of Fluid Mechanics.

Ben Blaiszik, a graduate student in Theoretical and Applied Mechanics at MechSE, was selected as one of eight finalists for the $30,000 Lemelson-Illinois Student Prize. The prize is an extension of the $30,000 Lemelson-MIT Student Prize, which has recognized outstanding student inventors at MIT since 1995.

Professor Pratap Vanka gave the Bhatnagar Memorial Lecture at the Indian Society of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics 2008 Annual Conference, which was held at Osmania University in Hyderabad, India. The lecture award is named after the distinguished physicist/mathematician, P. L. Bhatnagar, developer of the Bhatnagar-Gross-Krook (BGK) model widely used in Lattice Boltzmann Method. The title of Professor Vanka's talk was "Beauty of Shear and Buoyancy Driven Flows in Complex Enclosures: Immersed Boundary Simulations". The meet was attended by approximately 250 Indian applied mathematicians.

The Society of Automotive Engineers has selected Professor Dimitrios Kyritsis to receive the 2009 Ralph R. Teetor Educational Award. The award recognizes younger educators who are successfully preparing engineers to successfully meet the challenges that face society. Recipients are selected on the basis of their contributions to teaching and curriculum development, research publications and publishing.

Assistant Professor Nicholas Fang has received a National Science Foundation Career Program award to integrate research and education in the area of nano ionic manufacturing. The NSF Career Program supports early career development activities of teacher-scholars who most effectively integrate research and education activities.

Professor Ning Wang has been named as a member of the Cell Structure Function Study Section, Center for Scientific Review, in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (NIH). Study sections review grant applications submitted to the NIH, make recommendations on these applications to the appropriate NIH national advisory council or board, and survey the status of research in their scientific fields. They are section members are selected on the basis of their demonstrated competence and achievement in their scientific discipline as evidenced by the quality of research accomplishments, publications in scientific journals, and other significant scientific activities, achievements, and honors.

Researchers at Illinois have created the world's smallest fuel cell. The hydrogen-fueled microfuel cell, which measures just 3 millimeters across, generates power without consuming it and could be used in place of batteries in portable gadgets. News about the tiny power pack, which was designed by Saeed Moghaddam, a postdoctoral research associate from the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering; Professor Richard Masel, also from the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering; and Professor Mark Shannon from MechSE, has appeared in New Scientist, Techworld and other news media.

MechSE is hosting an alumni gathering in conjunction with the 2009 ASHRAE Winter conference. All alumni are invited to attend the gathering, which will be held from 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. on Sunday, January 25 in the Cresthill Room at the Palmer House Hilton, 17 East Monroe Street, Chicago, Illinois 60603. Complimentary hors d'oeuvres and beverages will be served. Please register online. For more information, contact Chip Jorstad, Director of Advancement at jorstad@illinois.edu or (217) 244-4341.

http://mechse.illinois.edu/ashrae

Professor Iwona Jasiuk and two professors from the Department of Aerospace Engineering (Eric Loth and Ilker Bayer) were recently selected to receive funding from the Grainger Program in Emerging Technologies, a program created by the Grainger Foundation to promote the translation of new academic engineering developments into commercially viable products and services. Jasiuk and her colleagues will use the funding to develop biocompatible adhesives that bond bone to other bone. More specifically, they plan to design biomimetics-based biocompatible nanocomposite materials that will adhere in wet environments, quickly set or cure, maintain strength comparable to bone when set, and not inhibit bone growth or healing.

Twenty-five teams of MechSE seniors made final presentations of their fall design projects in mid-December. The wide range of projects included the design of a net zero energy house that produces as much energy as it consumes as well as systems for reducing energy consumption in MechSE's Mechanical Engineering Laboratory (MEL).

Professor Andrew Alleyne (right) received the 2008 American Society of Mechanical Engineers Gustus L. Larson Award during the ASME International Mechanical Congress and Exposition last November in Boston.

Two MechSE alumni, Drs. Edward Caulfield and Donald Gall, have been chosen to receive the University of Illinois College of Engineering's highest honor for alumni in 2009: the Alumni Honor Award for Distinguished Service in Engineering. The award, which will be presented to the two alumni during a special convocation in May, recognizes outstanding leadership in the planning and direction of engineering or contributions to knowledge in the field of engineering.

MechSE's Department Head, Professor Huseyin Sehitoglu, was invested as the first John, Alice, and Sarah Nyquist Endowed Chair in Mechanical Science and Engineering during a formal ceremony on November 10.

Professor Martin Ostoja-Starzewski has joined the Editorial Board of Archive of Applied Mechanics, formerly called Ingenieur-Archiv, one of the oldest mechanics journals worldwide. The journal's purpose is the dissemination of the results of scientific research in the fields of solid mechanics, fluid mechanics, structural mechanics, dynamics and control, including related disciplines, in a form useful to engineering practice.

On Monday, December 8, Pi Tau Sigma will host a MechSE forum in which students, faculty and staff can ask questions, express opinions and make suggestions about coursework, credit, laboratories, facilities, technology and other topics related to the department. All MechSE faculty, staff and students are invited to attend the forum, which will be held at 5 p.m. in 2005 MEL.

Andrew Alleyne, the Ralph and Catherine Fisher Professor in Mechanical Science and Engineering, has been named the Associate Dean for Research in the College of Engineering, pending approval by the Board of Trustees. The Associate Dean for Research is a 50%-time position that will be replacing the Associate Dean for Strategic Initiatives position.

In November, 23 student members of the University of Illinois chapter of the Society of Women Engineers attended the society's 2008 national meeting in Baltimore, Maryland, where they received a gold level Outstanding Collegiate Section Award.

The society award recognizes chapters for outstanding professional development, outreach, diversity, membership recruitment and retention.

ME senior Kirk Strebel was one of seven Illinois students to attend the American Society of Mechanical Engineers 2008 International Mechanical Engineering Congress and Exposition in Boston.

The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers has received the SHPE National Chapter of the Year Award, the most prestigious form of student recognition awarded by the national SHPE executive board. The UIUC chapter was selected based on the 2007-2008 End of Year Reports, which summarize the yearly activities of each SHPE student chapter and assess how chapters progress toward achieving the society's mission and goals.

This November, a dozen student teams put their knowledge of engineering mechanics to the test by putting the design projects they'd worked so hard on during the semester into the jaws of a 3-million-pound Southward Emery testing machine.

Professor Albert P. Pisano, Director of the Berkeley Sensor & Actuator Center (BSAC) and Professor and Chair of the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of California at Berkley, was the guest speaker at the Alwin Schaller Distinguished Lecture Thursday, October 16. During his talk on "Micro and Nano Imprinted Advanced Materials for Sensors, Actuators and Circuits, he described new technologies that may make it possible to create a complete biochemical assay system that can be fully integrated onto a polymer substrate via the use of imprinting of functionalized polymers as well as conductive metals on the micro and nano scales.

On November 8, MechSE students in the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers (SHPE) hosted a campus visit for high school students that included tours of the crane bay and fluids laboratory at Talbot Laboratory. The tour of the crane bay included a demonstration of the ever-popular 3-million-pound testing facility.

Robert F. Sawyer, Class of 1935 Professor of Energy Emeritus from the University of California at Berkeley, was the guest lecturer for the 12th Yunchuan Aisinjioro-Soo Distinguished Lecture held on Thursday, November 30, 2008.

The U.S. Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory has teamed up with the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the University of Illinois at Chicago and Northwestern University to form the Illinois Center for Advanced Tribology (ICAT). The new center will focus on developing solutions to technical issues related to transportation and health, as well as systems that operate in extreme environments.

Emeritus Professor Jonathan Dantzig has been selected to receive the 2009 Educator Award from The Minerals, Metals & Materials Society (TMS). The award recognizes Dantzig's outstanding contributions to materials processing education through award-winning classroom teaching and industrial short courses, development of innovative undergraduate and graduate classes, and textbook writing.

Researchers at the Center for Nanoscale Chemical-Electrical-Mechanical Manufacturing Systems (Nano-CEMMS) have succeeded in making silicon solar cells so thin that they can be placed in arrays on flexible substrates to form larger solar cells that bend. These large, bendable solar cells are extremely light, making them easier to transport and install than exiting solar cells. They also work just as efficiently when bent as when flat, so they can be attached to curved or irregular surfaces. They can even be made transparent, which allows them to be used on windows, and because the microcells are so thin, they require less silicon and are consequently much cheaper to make.

This October more than 500 scientists and engineers from around the world gathered at the University of Illinois for the 2008 Annual Technical Meeting of the Society of Engineering Science (SES), a leading interdisciplinary forum that fosters the exchange of ideas among various engineering disciplines as well as physics, chemistry, mathematics, and related scientific fields. More than 180 students also attended the conference, which included an annual student presentation competition in which 16 finalists competed for three awards.

A former University of Illinois mechanical engineering graduate, Neel Kashkari, has been charged with overseeing the nation's $700 billion financial plan. Articles about him have appeared in the Chicago Sun Times, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, Time, and many other news outlets.

Professor Jonathan Freund has been selected to receive the 2008 François Frenkiel Award from the American Physical Society's Division of Fluid Dynamics. The award recognizes significant contributions by investigators under the age of 40 that have been published in the society's journal, Physics of Fluids.

Researchers in Professor Ning Wang's lab recently discovered the underlying molecular mechanism that allows living cells to adjust their response to force based on the speed with which that force is applied. They outlined their findings in a paper that appeared October 3 in the online Biophysics Journal.

MechSE senior Miguel Guerra has been recognized with the Student Role Model Award by the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers--one of the 2008 SHPE Technical Achievement Recognition (STAR) Awards recognizing the year's highest level of achievement in Hispanic engineering and sciences in several different categories. The Student Role Model Award recognizes the unselfish and outstanding contributions of an honoree to his SHPE student chapter and the Hispanic community while also maintaining academic excellence.

MechSE Associate Professor and Kritzer Faculty Scholar William King and collaborators at the University of Illinois and Trinity College, Dublin have discovered that at very small scales polymers don't play by the rules. They reported their findings in a paper published Thursday, October 2 by Science Express, the online version of the journal Science.

MechSE's incoming Alumni Board President, Rick Furkert, presided over the fall 2008 MechSE Alumni Board meeting last Friday, September 26. Twenty-two past and present board members attended the meeting, where they met with students and new faculty, learned about key initiatives, attended the annual scholarships and fellowship luncheon, and attended a panel on the future of manufacturing.

On September 23, Professor Mark Shannon shared his vision for "Water Science Technologies for Sustainable Water Supply and Purification in the Coming Decades" at one of the world's leading water research congresses.

Illinois was recently named the "top wired college" in the nation by PC Magazine. The magazine's 2008 rankings were compiled in partnership with the Princeton Review, which included tech-specific questions as part of a survey it conducted earlier in the year for the 2009 edition of its annual publication, The Best 368 Colleges.

Professor Narayana Aluru and doctoral student Sony Joseph have discovered the physical mechanism behind the rapid transport of water in carbon nanotubes. Their discovery, published in the journal Physical Review Letters, moves science a step closer to ultra-efficient, next-generation nanofluidic devices for drug delivery, water purification and nano-manufacturing.

Anasys Instruments has won the prestigious R&D 100 award for its new VESTA product, a tool which revolutionizes thermal analysis with its ability to perform "point & click" micro and nano thermal analysis at the push of a button. The award was based in part on heated atomic force microscope cantilevers developed by William King, an associate professor of mechanical science and engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Researchers at MechSE and the Department of Cell and Developmental Biology have discovered the first evidence that mechanical forces play an important role in the invasion of living cells. A paper describing their finding appeared in the online ahead-of-print version of Current Biology on August 28, and will appear in the journal's September 9, 2008 print issue.

The August 26th issue of Science Signaling highlighted a new experimental protocol developed by Professor Ning Wang and researchers at the University of Illinois. The group described for the first time how to apply mechanical stress to a cell and measure its effects on intracellular signaling pathways. The image shows a cell with an attached ferromagnetic bead mounted above an inverted microscope.

Moshe Matalon, College of Engineering Caterpillar Professor, was one of five plenary speakers at the 32^nd International Symposium on Combustion held August 3-8 at McGill University in Montreal, Canada. His lecture on Thursday, August 7, addressed multi-dimensional and time-dependent problems associated with the study of flame dynamics.

Assistant Professor Nicholas Fang was chosen as one of the world's 35 Top Young Innovators by Technology Review. Selected by the editors of that magazine, the TR35 consists of people under age 35 whose innovative work in technology and business has a profound impact on today's world. Nominees are recognized for their contributions in transforming the nature of technology in industries such as biotechnology, computing, energy, manufacturing, medicine, nanotechnology and transportation.

Pega Hrnjak, research professor and co-director of the Air-Conditioning and Refrigeration Center, was one of three individuals to receive a 2008 Rittinger Medal at the May International Energy Agency's Heat Pump Conference in Zurich. The award, named after Peter Ritter von Rittinger, an Austrian engineer who designed and installed the first knonw heat pump in 1855 in Austria, recognizes contributions to international collaboration in advancing heat pump technologies. Hrnjak received the award for his on a program comparing alternative refrigerants that stimulated the development of new components, refrigerants and systems.

MechSE doctoral student Adrian Lee was selected to receive a $10,000 graduate research award sponsored by the Federal Aviation Administration of the U.S. Department of Transportation and administered by the Airport Cooperative for Research Program (ACRP) of the Transportation Research Board/National Academies. Lee was selected to receive the award based on his research paper, "An Optimal Closed-Loop Passenger Screening Strategy for Enhancing Aviation Security."

Assistant Professor Nicholas Fang was one of six recipients selected by the Society of Manufacturing Engineers to receive a 2009 SME John G. Bollinger Outstanding Young Manufacturing Engineer Award.

Emeritus Professor Jonathan Dantzig has been selected to receive the 2009 TMS Educator Award. The award is presented on an annual basis to an individual who has made outstanding contributions to education, metallurgical engineering and/or materials science and engineering.

Professor Mark Shannon's testimony at a recent U.S. House of Representative's Energy and Environment Subcommittee hearing was featured in the July 24 issue of Energy & Environmental Daily, an online subscription publication that is widely read by members of government, environmental groups, corporations and the media.

Professor and Schaller Faculty Scholar Naira Hovakimyan joined MechSE on July 16, 2008. She comes to the department from Virginia Tech, where she was a Professor of Aerospace and Ocean Engineering. Professor Hovakimyan's research is in the area of nonlinear systems and adaptive control with particular emphasis on aerospace systems.

This July MechSE treated seven students from the Illinois Connections in Engineering (ICE) program to lunch and tours. ICE is an intensive academic bridge program that helps prepare incoming freshmen for the rigors of the engineering curriculum at Illinois. It has played a major role in helping the College of Engineering retain students from diverse backgrounds.

Research Associate Professor Stephen Platt joined MechSE in July 2008. He comes to the department from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, where he was also a research associate professor. His work focuses on the development of robots for surgery, biomedical sensing and cooperative unmanned air and ground maneuvers.

Professor Mark Shannon addressed the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) 2008 Water Sciences Forum, "Cutting-Edge Technologies for Water Services: Applications in Africa," during an invitation-only event held June 27 at the Department of State Building in Washington, D.C.

The University of Illinois' Formula SAE Team car finished 10^th in the endurance race and placed 13^th overall at the International Formula SAE event at Michigan International Speedway.

Professor Iwona Jasiuk and Professor Martin Ostoja-Starzewski delivered keynote presentations at the First American Academy of Mechanics Conference.

Professor Clark Bullard has received the 2008 ASHRAE-Alco Medal for Distinguished Public Service from the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers.

A groundbreaking paper by Professor Ning Wang was highlighted in the Editor's Choice section of Science Signaling, the weekly journal by the publishers of Science magazine. Wang's paper, "Rapid signal transduction in living cells is a unique feature of mechanotransduction," previously appeared in the April Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Charles Tucker, Alexander Rankin Professor of Mechanical Engineering, has been appointed Associate Dean for Academic Programs in the College of Engineering.

The American Society of Mechanical Engineers has selected Research Professor Richard DeVor and co-authors Professor Shiv Kapoor and Andrew Honegger, an Illinois MSME alumnus, to receive the 2008 Blackall Machine Tool and Gage Award.

The American Society of Mechanical Engineers selected Professor Andrew Alleyne to receive the 2008 Gustus L. Larson Memorial Award.

Researchers from MechSE and the Department of Bioengineering have discovered that mechanical signals travel through living cells more quickly and through a different pathway than hormones, pharmaceuticals and other chemical signals do. The alternative pathway was described in an April Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences paper by MechSE professor Ning Wang. Other authors included Yingxiao Wang, assistant professor of bioengineering, and MechSE researchers Sungsoo Na, Olivier Collin, Farhan Chowdhury and Bernard Tay, and bioengineering student Mingxing Ouyang.

Illinois car #53 placed in the top 10 in every event in the SAE VIR event at the Virginia International Raceway.

Undergraduate student Laura Fierce and graduate students Benjamin Barnes and Paulius Elvikis are members of an interdisciplinary team of engineering students that won the Environmental Protection Agency's "People, Prosperity and the Planet Student Design Competition for Sustainability."

On May 1, 23 MechSE student teams will make final senior design project presentations to their corporate sponsors. The schedule for the ME 470 presentations can be found on the MechSE Web site.

Drs. William Fourney (left) and W. Alan Van Der Sluys were among six alumni to be honored during the Alumni Board awards dinner.

MechSE doctoral students Farhan Chowdhury and Majid Minary-Jolandan were among 20 graduate students selected to receive 2009 Mavis Memorial Fund Scholarship Awards of $5,000. The awards are given each year to promising students who are working toward their doctoral degrees in the College of Engineering.

Sascha Hilgenfeldt joined MechSE this April as an associate professor. He comes to MechSE from Northwestern University's McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, where he was an associate professor with joint appointments in the Department of Engineering Sciences & Applied Mathematics and the Department of Mechanical Engineering.

Emeritus Professor JoDean Morrow died peacefully in his sleep on Tuesday, March 25, at his home in Ajo, Arizona. He was 78 years old. The retired TAM professor was known throughout the world for introducing the strain approach to fatigue and was widely recognized for his work in low-cycle fatigue and for his pioneering leadership in the development of useful design criteria for mechanical components subjected to fatigue damage. His efforts within the former TAM Department helped establish the first servo-hydraulic fatigue-testing facility in Talbot Laboratory, which has since become one of the most prestigious research laboratories in the country for materials testing.

Professor William King and colleagues have have demonstrated a method for simultaneous structural and chemical characterization of samples at the femtogram level (a femtogram is one quadrillionth of a gram) and below.The measurement technique combines the extraordinary resolution of atomic force microscopy and the excellent chemical identification of infrared spectroscopy.

Eleven MechSE professors and a MechSE staff member have been named to the 2007-2008 Engineering Council Outstanding Advisors list.

J. W. Bayne Professor Mark Shannon and Richard W. Kritzer Distinguished Professor John Georgiadis are co-authors of an article on water purification published in the March 20 issue of Nature (v. 452, pp. 301-310). The article--written with colleagues at the University of Notre Dame, Yale University, Illinois and MIT--highlights some of the science and technology being developed to improve and increase water supplies.

Henry Petroski, professor of civil and environmental engineering at Duke University, shared his vast knowledge about design success and failure with faculty, students and other guests during an invited lecture Monday, March 10 at the Engineering Sciences Building. Petroski, who received his master's and doctoral degrees at the University of Illinois, is the author of the book, To Engineering is Human: The Role of Failure in Successful Design, and is the writer and presenter of the 1987 BBC television documentary "&quot," as well as more than a dozen other books and hundreds of newspaper and magazine articles.

Practicing engineers, designers, graduate students and teaching faculty can improve their knowledge of fatigue and fracture during a two-day advanced course offered this September by the Fracture Control Program.

The course, which will be held April 9 and 10, will feature the latest in:

• Notches
• sequence effects in fatigue and fracture
• high temperature and thermo-mechanical fatigue
• multiaxial fatigue
• probabalistic methods in fatigue
• analysis methods
  

Professor Brian Thomas has been chosen to receive the 2008 Distinguished Scientist/Engineer Award from the Materials Processing and Manufacturing Division of The Minerals, Metals & Materials Society.

Leon M.. Keer, Walter P. Murphy Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Civil and Environmental Engineering at Northwestern University, spoke about the evolution of contact mechanics at the Arthur Newell Talbot Distinguished Lecture on Thursday, February 21.

MechSE Alumni Board president Kent Schien and vice president Rick Furkert have received the 2008 Constituent Leadership Award from the University of Illinois Alumni Association.

Researchers in Professor Min-Feng Yu’s lab have developed a new process that allows them to draw freestanding nanofibers and other complex nanoscale structures in three-dimensional space. Based on the rapid evaporation of solvent from simple “inks,” the process is essentially a 3-D fountain pen capable of drawing nanofibers in complex shapes and unlimited lengths.

Aslan Kasimov, who graduated with a doctoral degree from the Department of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics in 2004, was one of 29 young researchers to receive a three-year Young Investigator Award from the Air Force Office of Scientific Research. A total of 215 proposals were submitted for the prestigious award, which supports scientists and engineers who have received a doctoral degree or equivalent in the past five years and demonstrate exceptional promise in basic research.

College of Engineering Caterpillar Professor Moshe Matalon has been appointed associate editor of the leading international journal in his field, the Journal of Fluid Mechanics. He will begin his term in January 2008.

The solar-powered house built by MechSE and other University of Illinois students for the U.S. Department of Energy's Solar Decathlon competition won first place in two of the 10 categories: market viability and comfort zone. UI's "elementhouse" was prominently featured on "The News Hour with Jim Lehrer," a program that features reporting from local PBS and National Public Radio stations from around the country.

About 150 faculty, students, alumni and other guests heard about the latest research on "the influence of mechanical and biologic stimuli on bone formation, repair and regeneration" during MechSE's annual Yunchuan Aisinjioro-Soo Distinguished Lecture held October 11 at the Materials Science and Engineering Building.

The solar-powered house built by MechSE and other University of Illinois students for the 2007 Solar Decathlon contest will open its doors for public tours from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday, September 22. The house is located north of the Vet Med Building, just off the corner of South Lincoln Avenue and St. Mary's Road in Urbana. The public debut will be is the first and only chance the public will have to see the house before it and the student team that built it go to Washington, D.C., for the competition this October.

Practicing engineers, designers, graduate students and teaching faculty can refine their knowledge of fatigue and fracture during a two-day advanced course offered this September by the Fracture Control Program. The course, which will be held September 25 and 26 in conjunction with the Fracture and Control Program's Advisory Committee Meeting, will feature the latest in:

• Failure modes
• static strength and fracture
• the how and why of fatigue
• factors influencing fatigue
• fatigue of mechanical components

Researchers at the Center for Nanoscale Chemical-Electrical-Mechanical Manufacturing Systems (NanoCEMMS) set new benchmarks for precision control and resolution in jet-printing processes by developing methods that combine electrically induced fluid flow with nanoscale nozzles.Three MechSE Professors (Placid Ferreira, Andrew Alleyne and John Georgiadis), a MechSE affiliate (Paul Kenis), two graduate students (Kira Barton and Deepkishore Mukhopadhyay); and one alumnus (Kurt Adair, ME 2007) contributed to the interdisciplinary effort, which was led by John Rogers, Founder Professor of Materials Science and Engineering, who served as the corresponding author of a paper accepted for publication in the journal Nature Materials.

A revolutionary product based on a nanoscale thermal analysis technique developed by MechSE Professor William King has been selected to receive a 2007 R&D100 award from R&D Magazine, the magazine of research and development. A panel of industry experts appointed by Research and Development magazine called the nano-TA^TM sub-100nm local thermal analysis product “one of the 100 most technologically significant products introduced into the marketplace over the past year.”

Richard DeVor, College of Engineering Distinguished Professor of Manufacturing, has received the 2007 Honorary Member Award from the American Society of Mechanical Engineers.

Two projects by MechSE faculty were recently selected by the College of Engineering to receive funding from the Grainger Program in Emerging Technologies.

The University of Illinois car finished 8th in competition at the California Speedway in Fontana, CA.

Doctoral student Fernando Stump has been selected to receive the ISSMO/Springer Prize 2005 for a Young Scientist.

Dr. Moshe Matalon, formerly a professor of engineering sciences and applied mathematics and mechanical engineering at Northwestern University, has joined MechSE as the College of Engineering Caterpillar Professor.

Associate Professor and Kritzer Faculty Scholar Andreas Polycarpou has been selected as a Fulbright scholar grantee to Cyprus by the J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board.

J. W. Bayne Professor Mark Shannon has received the 2006 Research, Development, or Operational Team Award from the US Army Construction Engineering Research Laboratory (CERL).

Professor D. Scott Stewart has been awarded a National Academies Fellowship, Senior Research Award. The National Academies includes the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, the Institute of Medicine and the National Research Council.

MechSE researchers have developed a simple and robust electrochemical process for the direct patterning of metallic interconnects and other nanostructures. Their paper describing the process appeared in the February 14 issue of the journal Nano Letters, one of the most authoritative journals for nanotechnologists.

The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is number 6 on PC Magazine's "Top 10 Wired Colleges" list.

Professor D. Scott Stewart is an invited speaker at the 59th Annual Meeting of the American Physical Society's Division of Fluid Dynamics.

Professor Iwona Jasiuk, current president of the Society of Engineering Science, has announced that the organization's 2008 Annual Conference will take place at the University of Illinois.

Scholars and industry representatives from the US, Europe and Asia will gather for the 1^st International Conference on Micromanufacturing, September 13 – 15, at the University of Illinois.