Home > News & Events > News

News

• The Nanotechnology Institute, led by Robert Carpick, received $3.5 Million to foster nanotechnology research and development from the Pennsylvania Initiative for Nanotechnology.  See University Press Release.

• Vijay Kumar and collegues received the MAST CTA, the Micro Autonomous Systems and Technology Collaborative Technology Alliance, which will incorporate more than $22 million in funding during 10 years from the Army Research Laboratory.  See University Press Release.

• NASA astronaut Garrett Reisman is headed on Endeavour, STS 123, to the Space Station for a 6 month stay on March 11. Live feed from NASA TV can be seen at http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/index.html.  Garrett is a mission specialist and this mission will mark his first flight and his first space walk. More details of the mission and  pictures are available at http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/ main/index.html.

• Nandan Nerurkar (MEAM Ph.D. Candidate) along with Robert L. Mauck, and Dawn M. Elliott won the prestigious 2008 ISSLS prize for lumbar spine research in the Bioengineering category with their paper entitled "Integrating Theoretical and Experimental Methods for Functional Tissue Engineering of the Annulus Fibrosus".
• Professor Robert W. Carpick has been appointed Penn Director of the Nanotechnology Institute.  See Almanac article.

• The PACE (Partnership for the Advancement of Collaborative Engineering Education) Computer Aided Design and Analysis Laboratory has been established with funding from GM, EDS, HP, Siemens, and Sun.  In honor of this, inaugural events will take place on November 13 and 14, 2007.

On November 13, Jim Wiemmels, Vice President at General Motors, will give a lecture as part of Penn Engineering's Technology, Business and Leadership Lecture Series from 5:00-6:00 in the Wu and Chen auditorium. This will be followed by a reception.

On November 14, we will have information sessions on some of the CAD/ CAM packages which will be available in our lab (including NX, MSC Adams, MD Nastran, Fluent, and Altair HyperWorks) from 2:30-4:30 in Towne 337, followed by a reception and brain-storming session with students, faculty, and our industrial partners on new ways of teaching design in our curriculum from 4:30-6:00 in Raisler Lounge.

• A research team led by Prof. Robert Carpick has discovered a way to reduce friction at the molecular level.  See University Press Release.

• Penn's Autonomous Car "Little Ben" placed fourth in the final round of the DARPA Urban Challenge.  Team members include Jonathan Bohren (MEAM Junior '09) and Tully Foote (MEAM MSE '07).  See Philly.com and Wired articles.

• Haim Bau has won a DOE doctoral fellowship award for Lab-on-Chip Technology.  The US Department of Education awarded the micro / nanofluidics group at Penn five three-year doctoral fellowships to support doctoral students pursuing research in lab-on-chip technology.  Lab-on-chip technology deals with reducing the size of chemical and biological laboratories to wafer size and automating their operation.  Doctoral students will study the motion of fluids, particles, and macromolecules in micro and nano size conduits under the action of pressure, electric, and magnetic fields or subject to surface forces and address the interactions between macromolecules and functionalized surfaces. 

• Dr. Krishna P. Singh (MEAM Ph.D., '72) pledged $20M to build the new Krisha P. Singh Center for Nanotechnology, a new state-of-the-art nanoscale research facility at Penn. This is the largest gift in the history of Penn Engineering.  See coverage by Wall Street Journal and the University press release.

• Portonovo S. Ayyaswamy, Asa Whitney Professor of Dynamical Engineering, has been named the recipient of the 2007 Worcester Reed Warner Medal by American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) for "seminal, cross-disciplinary and ground breaking publications on phase-change heat/mass transfer with droplets and bubbles, multi-phase flows, buoyancy-driven transport and ionized arc-plasma transport, with long-lasting and significant applications in condensation, combustion, micro-electronic packaging, and micro-/macro-biological system." The Worcester Reed Warner Medal was established in 1930 and honors outstanding contributions to the permanent literature of engineering.

• Professor Lior delivers keynote at the UNESCO Conference on Sustainable Development of Energy, Water and Environment System in Dubrovnik.

• Jennifer Lukes has been selected to attend the 2007 Frontiers of Engineering symposium in Redmond, Washington from September 24-26.

• MEAM welcomes three new faculty to Penn!

Paulo Arratia (Ph.D. Rutgers, Post doc Haverford/Penn) is an expert in microfluidics and will start as Assistant Professor on July 1, 2007.  Jonathan P. Fiene (Ph.D.  Stanford), expert in design and robotics, will start as a Lecturer on September 1, 2007.  And Katherine J. Kuchenbecker (Ph.D. Stanford, Post doc Johns Hopkins), expert in haptics, medical robotics and design will start as Skirkanich Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics on July 1, 2007.

• Our Formula SAE team reached a new competition milestone in Detroit this May when it completed the punishing 22km endurance/economy event. Penn's third-year team, led by Matt Kalmus and Ross Nickerson, put in countless hours to build the best car yet.  Congratulations!  For pictures of the whole team, and their car, go to http://www.seas.upenn.edu/~fsae/.

• Dr. Thomas Cassel is the recipient of this year's Ford Motor Company Award for Faculty Advising.

• MEAM students won first prize at the 2007 SEAS Senior Design Competition held on Wednesday, April 25 for their Ravi-Bot project.  They competed against the winners of the other SEAS departmental design competitions.  See previous news item for more details on Ravi-Bot.

• Dr. Katherine J. Kuchenbecker, who will join Penn MEAM as an Assistant Professor in July, won the Best Paper Award on Haptic Technology at the 2007 IEEE World Haptics Conference, which took place in Tsukuba, Japan.  Her co-author was Dr. Jonathan Fiene, and their paper was entitled "Shaping Event-Based Haptic Transients Via an Improved Understanding of Real Contact Dynamics."  See the conference website for more details.

• Dr. Thomas Cassel is the recipient of this year's Provost's Award for Distinguished Teaching.

• MEAM Students Win First Prize at Pennvention - Graduate students Warren Jackson, Kevin Galloway, Bill Mather and Chris Thorne won first prize at Pennvention for their Radiosonde Recovery project.  The device incorporates GPS technology which helps aid in the recovery of atmospheric measuring instruments that have fallen back to earth.  See Philadelphia Inquirer article for more details.  (4/07)

• Peter Brueckner, Kristen Condello, Michael Dugan and William Jelliffe will exhibit Ravi-Bot at ArtBots Philadelphia 2007 on April 13th at the Esther M. Klein Art Gallery. Ravi-Bot is a robotic sitar which plays Hindustani classical and other music. More information is available here. Also see www.kleinartgallery.org/artbots.  Listen to clips from KYW Newsradio 1060: ravibot.mp3 and ravibot2.mp3.

• MEAM Students Building Car of the Future - Tully Foote (M.S.E.), Jim Keller (Ph.D), Jonathan Bohren (UG) are members of the Ben Franklin Racing Team as part of the 2007 Urban Challenge.  More information (2/07)

• Prof. Pedro Ponte Castañeda is the winner of the 2006 Heilmeier Research Award.  This award is presented for scientifically meritorious research with high technological impact and visibility.  Dr. Ponte was selected for outstanding contributions to theoretical mechanics, including the development of novel variational techniques for estimating the macroscopic properties of nonlinear composite materials. More information about Dr. Ponte's research can be found at www.me.upenn.edu/faculty/ponte.html.

• Robert Carpick will join the MEAM faculty as an Associate Professor in January 2007.

• MEAM offers a new Product Design Specialization in the Masters Program.

• Together with Lockheed Martin Advanced Technology Lab (ATL) and others, Penn MEAM Prof's Yim and Kumar obtained a DARPA contract to design a remote controlled nano air vehicle (NAV). The device will look similar in size and shape to a maple tree seed. A chemical rocket enclosed in its one-bladed wing will power a sensor payload module more than 1,100 yards. Delivered from a hover and weighing up to 0.07 ounces, the NAV will be about 1.5 inches long and have a maximum takeoff weight of about 0.35 ounces.  The current contract is $1.7 million for 10 months to do trade studies and risk reduction component prototypes with an 18 month extension to design and test a flying prototype.

• Wharton Business Plan Competition grand prize winning team  SmartMortion Technologies (MuscleMorph) rang the closing bell at The  NASDAQ Stock Market in its MarketSite broadcast studio on Tuesday,  August 8, 2006.  Congratulations to MEAM graduate student, Kevin Galloway, a team member of MuscleMorph. 
  A description of MuscleMorph can be found at http://bpc.wharton.upenn.edu/participants/ finalists2006.html. Kevin is working on his Ph.D. with Professor Mark Yim.

• Dr. Vasek Vitek, Professor of Materials Science and Engineering and Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics, has been elected to the National Academy of Engineering. (2/06)

• Dr. Ira Cohen has been selected to receive an AIAA Sustained Service Award "For dedicated service to AIAA at the section and technical publications levels.” The award is presented to recognize sustained, significant service and contributions to the AIAA, by members of the Institute. (1/06)

• Dr. Prashant Purohit joined the department as assistant professor, beginning January 1, 2006. Dr. Purohit joins MEAM after a postdoctoral appointment in Physics and Astronomy at Penn. He earned his PhD in Applied Mechanics from Cal Tech. Dr. Purohit's research interests include rod theories for DNA and biopolymers, mechanics of sub-cellular organelles, mechanics at the bio-nano interface, martensitic phase transitions in solids. Dr. Purohit's webpage. (1/06)

• Dr. Noam Lior was Organizer and Chair of a panel presentation by international experts on "Energy strategy for sustainable development" at the Dubrovnik 2005 Conferences on "Sustainable Development of Energy, Water and Environmental Systems", June 2005, Dubrovnik, Croatia.  Dr. Lior also appeared on the Croatian National TV. (1/06)

• Dr. Vijay Kumar was elected Fellow of IEEE, effective January 2006, "for contributions to the development of robotics and automation." (1/06)

• Dr. Jennifer Lukes is the recipient of an NSF Career Award. The award, "Integrated Approach for Modeling Thermal Energy Transport in Mesoscale Arrays of Nanostructures." More infomation (1/06)

• Dr. Mark Yim's robotics research was recently featured on the Discovery Channel. Read about the PolyBot and watch the Disovery Channel video here.

• Dr. George Biros and collaborators from UT-Austin, MIT, Sandia National Labs, and the University of Graz have been awarded an $825,000 NSF grant to create a data-driven, high performance computational framework for real-time identification of hazardous events from sensor measurements, and consequent prediction of the evolution of the hazard. More information (10/05)
  

• MEAM hosts the ASME International Design Engineering Technical Conferences & the Computers and Information in Engineering Conference, held from September 10 - 13, 2006 in Philadephia, PA. For more information: http://detc2006.seas.upenn.edu (10/05)

• Dr. Lou Soslowsky is the current Chair of the Bioengineering Division of ASME. Lou is a member of the MEAM Graduate Group and is Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery and Bioengineering, Vice Chair for Research and Director of McKay Orthopaedic Research Laboratory in the School of Medicine. (10/05)
  

• Dr. Vijay Kumar, Dr. Mark Yim and Dr. George Pappas host the Robotics Science and Systems Conference, August 16 - 19, 2006. For more information: http://roboticsconference.org/index.shtml (10/05)

• Dr. P.S. Ayyaswamy has been invited to serve on a National Research Council (NRC) of the National Academies committee that will review NASA's strategy for completing the International Space Station and utilizing it for research. (9/05)

• Dr. Mark Yim was nominated for this year's World Technology Awards, held in association with TIME magazine, CNN, Science magazine/AAAS, and others. This is a peer-nomination process -- with current individual WTN Members and Fellows -- and it is a truly special honor to be selected as a Member-Nominee. Winners will be announced at the World Technology Awards black-tie gala on November 15th at San Francisco City Hall at the conclusion of the two-day World Technology Summit. For more information: http://www.wtn.net/2005/summit (9/05)

• Dr. Harvey Rubin, a member of the MEAM Graduate Group, was named by Philadelphia Mayor John Street to cochair a new task force charged with reassessing Philadelphia's emergency-preparedness plan. Rubin will lead the 10-person task force, created by Mayor Street in response to Hurricane Katrina. Havey Rubin is director of Penn's four-year-old Institute for Strategic Threat Analysis and Response, and is a professor of medicine who specializes in infectious diseases. (9/05)

• Summer Academy for Applied Science and Technology -- Robotics: MEAM faculty, staff, and graduate students were involved in this challenging and educational program for high school students. Instructors for the program were MEAM faculty members Vijay Kumar and Mark Yim, MEAM lab coordinator Terry Kientz, GRASP lab graduate students Jim Keller, Dave Cappelleri, Ani Hsieh, and Meghann Lomas. Resident and Teaching Assistants included MEAM undergraduates Kristin Condello, Christian Moore, Nick Kopec, and Michael Corrente. Pictures from Test Drive of Robotic Monster Trucks

• Prof. Vijay Kumar was appointed Chair of MEAM beginning July 1, 2005. From Dean Eduardo Glandt's announcement: "Vijay is a distinguished scholar and educator who served as the School's first Deputy Dean with tremendous distinction. His past accomplishments and his ambitious ideas for the program bode very well for the future of mechanical engineering at Penn....What's past is prologue. Much of the optimism we all share is due to the tremendous amount of energy and talent that John Bassani has invested in his leadership of the department during his tenure as chair." (7/05)

• Prof. Vijay Kumar's research was highlighted in a recent issue of the Penn Current. (4/05)

• MEAM PhD students Dave Cappelleri, Jim Keller and Meghann Lomas have volunteered with the Haverford School Robotics Club. On March 18-19, 2005, the Club participated in the Chesapeake Regional competition sponsored by US FIRST Robotics. (3/05)
  

• MEAM graduate student Adam Engler and coworkers were highlighted in the journal Nature. (3/05)

• Prof. Vijay Kumar has been appointed as the UPS Foundation Professor of Transportation. Read more in the Penn Almanac. (2/05)

• Dr. Mark Yim joined the MEAM faculty as associate professor and Gabel Family Term Junior Professor of Mechanical Engineering, September 2004. More on Dr. Yim (9/04)

• MEAM welcomed assistant professor Dr. George Biros to the department in September 2003. Visit Dr. Biros's web page. (9/03)

• The Penn Solar Racing Team, led by Dane Carswell, participated in the 2003 American Solar Challenge, a 2300-mile race from Chicago to L.A. For more information about the race, refer to the American Solar Challenge website.