The Department of Mechanical Engineering has developed six strategic research foci areas that highlight the diversity and breadth of the field of mechanical engineering.
ENERGY
Energy Sciences and Sustainability
If you’re interested in improving the environment this is where you can delve into research that can lead to a healthier future for our planet. You’ll discover more efficient and smart uses of limited fossil fuels; produce biofuels from renewable and sustainable sources, and learn how to harvest energy from the sun, wind, earth, and water.
Faculty researchers: Xianglan Bai, Robert C. Brown, Mark Bryden, Abhijit Chandra, Baskar Ganapathysubramanian, Ted Heindel, Shan Hu, Todd Kingston, Song-Charng Kong, Mark Mba-Wright, James Michael, Reza Montazami, Sonal Padalkar, Cary Pint, Travis Sippel and Xinwei Wang.
HEALTH
Bioengineering and Translational Health
Work toward a career in creating solutions that can have an impact on healthcare products and practices. Research here involves investigating problems at the interface of engineering, biology, and medicine, and applying mechanical engineering principles that lead to the creation of new science and engineering breakthroughs and ultimately clinical implementation. You’ll pursue experimental and computational strategies to understand the physical principles of phenomena impacting human health. This research can have a significant and lasting impact on challenges in cancer, infectious diseases, neurosciences, age-related diseases, and global health.
Faculty researchers: Sarah Bentil, Carmen Gomes, Nicole Hashemi, Ming-Chen Hsu, Jaime Juárez, Adarsh Krishnamurthy, Meng Lu, Juan Ren, Cris Schwartz, Pranav Shrotriya, and Eliot Winer.
FLUIDS
Multiphase and Complex Fluids
This program investigates non-Newtonian, multiphase, turbulent, and chemically reacting flows over multiple lengths and time scales. You’ll help develop unique experimental and computational techniques that advance our understanding of fluid flow phenomena and enable engineering applications, including fuel and chemical production; biomass transport; particle dispersion; and heat exchangers in evaporators, boilers, and condensers. The efforts of this program pioneer new theories and models of multiphase flow and complex fluid processes and validate these processes through novel experimental techniques and exploration tools.
Faculty researchers: Sarah Bentil, Jonathan Claussen, Baskar Ganapathysubramanian, Nicole Hashemi, Ted Heindel, Ming-Chen Hsu, Jaime Juárez, Todd Kingston, Song-Charng Kong, Adarsh Krishnamurthy, Jongyhun Lee, Mark Mba-Wright, James Michael, Michael Olsen, Alberto Passalacqua, Soumik Sarkar, Travis Sippel, and Shankar Subramaniam.
COMPUTATIONAL SCIENCES
Big Data and Visualization
This program lets you investigate advanced computational and hardware techniques to understand and predict physical phenomena, as well as unique image rendering methods to enhance the interpretation of complex systems and data sets. You’ll help develop and advance simulation and visualization capabilities and apply them in a societal context. You can also develop enabling technologies for products or processes to be altered and tested in a virtual environment before any physical models are created.
Faculty researchers: Sourabh Bhattacharya, Mark Bryden, Abhijit Chandra, Cody Flemming, Baskar Ganapathysubramanian, Ming-Chen Hsu, Chao Hu, Song-Charng Kong, Adarsh Krishnamurthy, Valery Levitas, Beiwen Li, Reza Montazami, Jim Oliver, Rafael Radkowski, Soumik Sarkar, Cris Schwartz, Xinwei Wang and Eliot Winer.
SYSTEMS
Dynamics, Sensors, and Controls
Learn how electromechanical systems interact with people and their surroundings using sensors, actuators, and intelligent computer software. You’ll see how these components work together to build smart systems like windows that sense and cancel noise, energy-efficient buildings that predict and adjust to our needs, robots that work alongside humans as teammates, and vehicles that can guide themselves.
Faculty researchers: Sourabh Bhattacharya, Cody Flemming, Shan Hu, Greg Lucke, Cary Pint, Juan Ren, and Soumik Sarkar.
MULTI-SCALE ENGINEERING
Design, Manufacturing, and Nanoscale Sciences
Many aspects of mechanical engineering require the understanding and use of phenomena that span a wide range of length and time scales. Multiscale engineering is concerned with the study of phenomena, the design of processes, and the development of products that span a wide range of scales. Of particular interest are those problems where the interactions between scales are tightly coupled and attempt to coarse-grain simpler models of complex multiscale phenomena.
Faculty Researchers: Emmanuel Agba, Sarah Bentil, Abhijit Chandra, Carmen Gomes, Nicole Hashemi, Caroline Hayes, Ming-Chen Hsu, Chao Hu, Shan Hu, Jaime Juárez, Adarsh Krishnamurthy, Jonghyun Lee, Valery Levitas, Beiwen Li, Meng Lu, Reza Montazami, Jim Oliver, Sonal Padalkar, Cary Pint, Rafael Radkowski, Juan Ren, Cris Schwartz, Pranav Shrotriya, Travis Sippel, Shankar Subramniam, Sriram Sundararajan, Xinwei Wang, and Eliot Winer.
