Michigan Technological University Michigan Technological University
Digital Commons @ Michigan Tech Digital Commons @ Michigan Tech
Department of Mechanical Engineering-
Engineering Mechanics eNewsBrief
Department of Mechanical Engineering-
Engineering Mechanics
1-2022
ME-EM eNewsBrief, December 2021 ME-EM eNewsBrief, December 2021
Department of Mechanical Engineering-Engineering Mechanics, Michigan Technological
University
Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.mtu.edu/mechanical-news
Part of the Engineering Mechanics Commons, and the Mechanical Engineering Commons
Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.mtu.edu/mechanical-news
Part of the Engineering Mechanics Commons, and the Mechanical Engineering Commons
Greengs from William (Bill) Predebon, Chair, Department of Mechanical Engineering-Engineering Mechanics at Michi-
gan Tech. For the latest news and info about our faculty, students and sta, please visit our website at www.mtu.edu/
mechanical. Visit us on Facebook, Instagram and Twier.
Upcoming Events
The ME-EM Scholarship Winter Carnival Alumni Hockey Skybox Social will be held on Saturday, February 12,
2022, during the Michigan Tech vs. Bowling Green hockey game in the Husky Suite South Skybox of the John Mac-
Innes Student Ice Arena. The social begins at 5 p.m. Mechanical Engineering alumni and former professional hockey
and football players John Scott (BSME '10) and Joe Berger (BSME '04) will attend the social and participate in a spe-
cial ME-EM fundraising raffle.
Tickets for the social are $40/person, which includes a $20 donation to the ME-EM Alumni Scholarship Fund. The ME-
EM department will provide stadium food and refreshments. Registration for skybox tickets will soon be available on
the Michigan Tech Ticket Office website. The deadline to purchase social tickets online is 8 a.m. on Wednesday, Febru-
ary 9, 2022.
Signed jersey raffle tickets are $50 each. The online registration site will allow you to purchase a raffle ticket for a
Michigan Tech hockey jersey signed by John Scott or for a Michigan Tech football jersey signed by Joe Berger. The
winners will be announced during the intermission following the second period. If not present, the winners will be con-
tacted. The deadline to purchase raffle tickets online is Noon on Fri-
day, February 11. If attending the Social, raffle tickets can be pur-
chased in person the night of the event with cash or check only.
ME-EM Department News & Accomplishments
Michigan Tech’s 3D-printing capabilities have moved into metals
with the acquisition of a 3D Systems DMP 350 metal printer.
Direct metal printing (DMP) allows manufacturers to create fine
parts from metal powders
through a process called
additive manufacturing, where
the printers add metal bit by bit.
This is inverse from traditional
manufacturing, which focuses on taking away metal to create a part.
Obtaining the new 3D printer was made possible by the generosity of our Michigan
Tech alumni. Jim Scarlett (AAS, Mechanical Design Eng Tech ‘00, and BS
Industrial Business Mgt ‘01), owner of Scarlett Inc, generously offered ME-EM
department chair Bill Predebon a 20 percent discount on the $875K system.
An anonymous ME alumni provided a very large donation, along with contribu-
tions from the following alumni: Frank Agosti (BSME ‘58), John Drake (BSME
‘64), R.W. Fernstrum & Company, Inc. - [Paul Fernstrum (BSME ‘65) and Sean
Fernstrum (BS Sci & Tech Comm ‘90)], Todd Fernstrum (AAS EET ‘92), Ron
Starr (BSME ‘67), and Victor Swanson (BSME ‘50).
For inquiries about the 3D Systems DMP 350 metal printer, contact Jacob Lundin
(ME-EM Research Engineer, jdlundin@mtu.edu) or Russell Stein (MSE Research
Engineer (BSME ‘87), restein@mtu.edu).
Vol. 17 | Issue 4 | DEC 2021
• Upcoming Events
• ME-EM Department News &
Accomplishments
1
• ME-EM Faculty & Staff
Awards and Accomplishments
2
• New ME-EM Staff
• Student Accomplishments &
Awards
3
• Student Competitions &
Team Awards
• Alumni and Friends News,
Accomplishments & Awards
4
• Current Contracts & Grants
• University News & Awards
5
• Past Events
6
IN THIS ISSUE:
Examples of a heat exchanger that was recently produced
by Michigan Tech’s new 3D metal printer
Page 2
October - December 2021
ME-EM Faculty & Staff
Awards and Accomplishments
Dr. Nancy Barr, (Professor of Prac-
tice, ME-EM) was invited at present a
talk to the Philadelphia chapter of the
IEEE Professional Communication
Society titled "Stop Wasting People's
Time: How to Deliver Meaningful and
Relevant Training Sessions" on June
29.
Dr. Ezra Bar-Ziv (Professor, ME-
EM) received his first MTRAC AgBio
grant in 2018 through a competitive
grant proposal submission. This
$50,000 matching fund grant support-
ed his research that uses biological
materials as feedstocks for petroleum
refineries. In 2019, he submitted a pro-
posal for a second technology that re-
sulted from previous MTRAC awarded
research. MTRAC grants are awarded
to assist with the commercialization of
new technologies. Read the full article
Commercializing clean waste to ener-
gy technology on innovation-
center.msu.edu/commercializing-clean
-waste-to-energy-technology/
Dr. Jason Blough, (Professor, ME-
EM), has been selected to join Michi-
gan Tech’s Distinguished Professors.
Since joining Michigan Tech in 2003,
Blough has been recognized for nu-
merous contributions in teaching, re-
search and service.
Dr. Fei Long (Lecturer) (ME-EM)
was the winner of the 2021 Mechanical
Engineering Teacher of the Year
Award. The award was announced
during the recent 2021 ME-EM De-
partment Order of the Engineer virtual
ceremony. Runners-up were ME-EM
senior lecturers Dr. Jaclyn Johnson and
Dr. Aneet Narendranath.
Dr. Nina Mahmoudian (Adj Assoc
Prof, ME-EM) developed an agile un-
derwater glider dubbed ROUGHIE
(Research Oriented Underwater Glid-
er for Hands on Investigative Engi-
neering) that was the subject of a
story in Hydro International. The sto-
ry notes that Mahmoudian and her
students began the project in 2012
at Michigan Tech
Dr. Guy Meadows (Res Prof, ME-EM
and GLRC) and Lorelle Meadows
(Res Assoc Prof, Pavlis Honors Col-
lege) have been instrumental in
bringing a new buoy and a perma-
nent high-frequency radar system to
add further monitoring to the Straits
of Mackinac. The Straits’ turbulent
currents make remote observation
of waves and weather crucial in the
busy and important Michigan water-
way. Read the full story “Oh Buoy:
New Monitoring Keeps Maritime
Safety on the Radar in the Straits on
mtu.edu/news.
Dr. Greg Odegard (Prof, ME-EM) re-
cently did a Q&A in which the 2021
Michigan Tech Research Award win-
ner talked about his research devel-
oping ultrastrong composite materi-
als for crewed deep space mis-
sions. Read the full article “Q&A
with MTU Research Award Winner
Gregory Odegard” in the Michigan
Tech News blog.
Dr. Trisha Sain (Asst Prof, ME-EM)
was a recipient of a Spring 2021
Portage Health Foundation Re-
search Excellence Fund (PHF-REF-
RS) Research Seed Grant. The
Health Research Institute an-
nounced the recipients in early
May. More information about REF
awards and the application process
can be found on the Research Excel-
lence Fund page.
Dr. Yongchao Yang (Asst Prof, ME-
EM) was a recipient of a Spring 2021
Research Excellence Fund (REF)
award as announced by the Associate
Vice President for Research Develop-
ment Office. More information about
REF awards and the application pro-
cess can be found on the Research Ex-
cellence Fund page.
ME-EM Faculty & Staff
Awards and Accomplishments
Drs. Parisa Abadi and Susanta
Ghosh (Asst. Profs., ME-EM) each
received Michigan Tech Research Ex-
cellence Fund (REF) seed grants.
Dr. Andrew Barnard (ME-EM/
GLRC) is the co-PI on a project that
has received a $217,527 R&D co-op/
joint agreement from the U.S. Geologi-
cal Survey. The project is titled "USGS
Sensor Support System." Christopher
Roussi (Senior Res Scientist/Engineer,
MTRI/GLRC) is the principal investi-
gator (PI).
Dr. Ana Dyreson, P.E. (Asst. Prof.,
ME-EM) was invited by the Environ-
mental Engineering department’s
Graduate Seminar to present her re-
search on October 25 in the
GLRC. Her presentation was titled:
"Energy-water-climate interactions in
changing power systems: multi-sector
modeling approaches leveraging inter-
disciplinary teams."
Dr. Dyreson was selected by the Tech
Forward Initiative on Sustainability
and Resilience (ISR) as a Sustainable
and Resilient Communities Faculty
Research Fellow! Dyreson works in
the realm of energy systems transitions
and the energy-water-climate nex-
us. She will be relieved of one course
for the fall 2022 semester in order to
focus on developing and submitting
research funding proposals that will
enhance Michigan Tech’s leadership in
impactful sustainability and resilience
research. Dyreson will be working on
proposal submissions for NSF pro-
grams, including the NSF CAREER
award program, and for the Alfred P.
Sloan Foundation. Read more about
the Faculty Research Fellow program
in Tech Today.
Dr. Susanta Ghosh (Asst. Prof., ME-
EM) and Dr. Trisha Sain (Asst., Prof.,
ME-EM) were selected as recipients of
university grants intended to mitigate
financial losses to research, creative,
and scholarly work as a result of the
pandemic. A total of twelve individu-
als were selected for these grants. The
grants come from a collaboration
among the ADVANCE Initiative,
Provost’s Office, VP for Diversity and
Inclusion, VP for Research Office, and
University Marketing and Communi-
cations.
Dr. Kartik Iyer’s (Asst. Prof., Phys-
ics/ME-EM) research–with collabora-
tors Janet D. Scheel, Jörg Schumacher,
and Katepalli R. Sreenivasan–was cit-
ed in the scientific background docu-
ment for the 2021 Nobel Prize in Phys-
ics. The paper, titled “Classical 1/3
Scaling of Convection Holds Up to Ra
= 10
15
,” was published in the Proceed-
ings of the National Academy of Sci-
ences in 2020.
Dr. Iyer’s article “The Area Rule for
Circulation in Three-Dimensional Tur-
bulence” was recently published in the
Proceedings of the National Academy
of Sciences. In the article, Iyer demon-
strates that the Area Rule–which posits
that the circulation around any closed
loop uniquely depends on its minimal
area–holds to a good approximation
but has shortcomings: namely that the
minimal area alone is insufficient to
quantify the circulation statistics.
Jacob Lundin (Research Engineer,
ME-EM) was nominated by the depart-
ment for this year’s Making a Differ-
ence Rookie Award. This award recog-
nizes staff members who have been an
employee at Michigan Tech for two
years or less who have made an impact
in a short amount of time and who
quickly became valuable members of
the team by demonstrating an under-
standing of the goals and mission of
the department/area.
Dr. Guy Meadows (Research Profes-
sor, ME-EM and GLRC) was quoted
in a Wisconsin Watch story about Wis-
consin landowners battling shoreline
erosion on Lake Michigan.
Dr. Aneet Narendranath’s (Senior
Lecturer, ME-EM) data science note-
book, which he presented at the Wolf-
ram Technology Virtual Conference in
October, is being published online by
Wolfram Research. The topic of his
presentation was “Learning Analytics
tools for a STEM curriculum,” which
was presented under the “Future of
Education” conference track. Dr. Nar-
endranath’s work was chosen as a
“Staff Pick” as an “exceptional post.”
Bob Page (Director of Lab Facilities,
ME-EM) was nominated for this year’s
Making a Difference Outstanding
Leader Award. This award recognizes
staff leaders who create a positive and
motivating work environment by rec-
ognizing others for their contributions,
supporting work-life balance, encour-
aging professional development, and
responding well under pressure. Bob
was nominated by his direct staff re-
ports.
Mechanical Engineering Pracce (MEP) session
- an MEP1 Reverse Engineering exercise
Page 3
Student Accomplishments/
Awards
Lisa Downie (sr./ME) and Eve Kacz-
kowski (sr./ME) were recognized as
graduating seniors at Michigan Tech’s
chapter of Society of Women Engi-
neers (SWE) end-of semester banquet.
Julia Westfall (sr./ME) received a
$1,000 scholarship sponsored by Ruby
& Associates Inc. and Developed
Technologies, which recognizes stu-
dents for their contributions to the
SWE section and the University com-
munity.
Ayush Chutani (PhD student, ME-EM,
MSME ‘17) and Andrew Huston (MS
student, ME-EM) participated in the
26th United Nations Climate Change
Conference of the Parties (COP26) in
Glasgow, Scotland as part of the
Youth Environmental Alliance in
Higher Education (YEAH), a multidis-
ciplinary research and education net-
work of students and faculty from 10
universities across four continents.
Their graduate advisors are Drs. Ana
Dyreson (Asst. Prof., ME-EM) and
Jason Blough (Prof., ME-EM), respec-
tively. Included in the event were six
Michigan Tech students and three
alumni who helped lead events and a
press conference. Read the full story
in the Michigan Tech News blog.
Siddharth Gopujkar (PhD student,
ME-EM), along with Dr. Aneet Nar-
endranath (Sen. Lect., ME-EM), pre-
sented “Building a Suite of Learning
Analytics tools for STEM education”
at the Wolfram Technology Confer-
ence, October 13-16.
Hayden Huttula (sr./ME) was an-
nounced one of eight Michigan Tech
football players that was named All-
Conference by the GLIAC.
Hayden Huttula and Michael
Munderloh (sr./ME) were recognized
at the Michigan Tech football awards
ceremony in December. Huttula re-
ceived Offensive Lineman of the Year
and Munderloh received the Daniel
Dopp Memorial Special Teams Player
of the Year.
Katy Pioch (sr./ME) was awarded a
Women in Defense scholarship from
the Women in Defense Michigan
Chapter, recognizing her contribution
to the field of defense and scholarship
at Tech. Pioch is the current co-social
chair and outreach director for SWE
and current president of the SAE Clean
Snowmobile Challenge Enterprise.
Prithvi Reddy, Ankith Ullal, Shab-
nam Konica, and Chethan Reddy
(PhD students, ME-EM) were among
eleven recipients of the Grad School’s
Fall 2021 Finishing Fellowships. Their
advisors are ME-EM professors Dar-
rell Robinette (Asst. Prof.),
Youngchul Ra (Assoc. Prof.), Trisha
Sain (Asst. Prof.), and co-advisors
Rush Robinett (Res. Prof.) and
Wayne Weaver (Assoc. Prof.), re-
spectively. Read more about each
awardee in the Grad School Newsblog.
Ponkrshnan Thiagarajan (PhD stu-
dent, ME-EM), Pushkar Khairnar
(MSME ’20), and Dr. Susanta Ghosh
(Asst. Prof., ME-EM) published a pa-
per in the journal IEEE Transactions
on Medical Imaging. They developed
a machine learning model for detecting
breast cancer from histopathology im-
ages–tissues and cells examined under
microscope. The model can classify
benign and malignant tumors from
these images–and it can also evaluate
the uncertainty in its predictions. The
paper outlines their novel probabilistic
machine learning model, which outper-
forms similar models and reduces Un-
certainty in Breast Cancer Diagnoses.
Read the full story at mtu.edu/news.
Mitch Timm (PhD student, ME-EM)
and Dr. Hassan Masoud (Asst. Prof.,
ME-EM) were featured guest bloggers
on Michigan Tech’s research blog,
Unscripted. You can read their guest
post, titled “Why We Built a Bug
Robot That Can Surf,” here.
October - December 2021
New ME-EM Staff
Jade Driscoll joined the ME-
EM office staff in December as
an Administrative Aide. Jade’s
most recent position was as an
English Composition instructor
at Alpena Community College.
She holds an MA from Central
Michigan University in English
and Creative Writing, and she
brings her writing, editing, and
proofreading abilities to the
position.
Meg Raasakka also joined the
ME-EM office staff in Decem-
ber as an Administrative Aide.
Meg previously worked at the
Franklin Square Inn and as an
assistant for Brockit Photog-
raphy in Houghton. Meg brings
to the position a dedicated work
ethic, professional customer ser-
vice, and an immense knowledge
of the area.
Page 4
October - December 2021
Student Competitions and
Team Awards
Sunit Girdhar (PhD student, ME-EM)
was a finalist in this year’s Three Mi-
nute Thesis competition, organized by
the Graduate Student Government
(GSG) of Michigan Tech. 28 partici-
pants competed on Nov. 4. This year's
finals were streamed live on GSG’s
Facebook page and can be watched
online, or read more in Tech Today.
The faculty and student team of Tyler
Miller (MSME ‘20, BSME ‘18), Joel
Duncan (Asst. Res. Eng., APSRC/ME-
EM), William Hansley (BSME ‘20,
Res. Test Eng., APSRC/ME-EM), Dr.
John Beard (ME-EM Res. & Emeritus
Professor), Dr. Jeremy Worm (Assoc.
Director APSRC/ME-EM), and Dr. Jeff
Naber (Professor, ME-EM, Director
APSRC) won an ASME award for Most
Valuable Technical Paper in Engine
Design and Mechanical Development.
Their paper, which was published in
December 2020, was recognized at the
2021 Internal Combustion Engines Fall
Technical Conference in October 2021.
The paper is titled “Design Actuation,
Experimental Setup and Testing of a 4-
Cylinder Gasoline Spark Ignited Varia-
ble Compression Ratio Engine.”
Alumni and Friends News,
Accomplishments & Awards
Ahammad Basha Dudekula (PhD,
ME-EM ‘20) and his graduate advisor,
Dr. Jeff Naber (Prof., ME-EM), re-
ceived the 2020 Vincent Bendix Auto-
motive Electronics Engineering Award
in recognition of the paper they had
published in the SAE International
Journal of Connected and Automated
Vehicles. This annual award recognizes
the author(s) of the best paper on the
subject of automotive electronics engi-
neering. The paper is titled “Algorithm
Development for Avoiding Both Mov-
ing and Stationary Obstacles in an Un-
structured High-Speed Autonomous
Vehicular Application Using a Nonlin-
ear Model Predictive Controller.”
Mark Rakoski (BSME ‘95), Vice
President, Advanced Engineering, for
Mitsubishi Electric Automotive Ameri-
ca, Inc., was one
of three Michigan
Tech alumni
featured at the
first session of the
Innovators in In-
dustry series on
25 October. The
session was titled
“The Future of
Autonomous Vehicles & Mobility.”
Read more about the session on the
COE Newsblog.
Christine Roberts (BSME ‘91), Senior
Vice President & General Manager of
software and
services solu-
tions at Poly,
was one of four
Michigan Tech
alumni featured
at the second
session of the
Innovators in
Industry series
on 1 Novem-
ber. The session was titled “The Com-
puting Revolution.” Read more about
the session on the COE Newsblog.
Nelson Sommerfeldt (BSME ‘04) re-
turned to Tech as a visiting scholar to
find out if solar heat pumps are a viable
winter heating method in colder U.S.
climates. He teamed up with Tech’s
solar photovoltaic experts on the pro-
ject–and the researchers have published
two new studies that show how heating
without gas or propane is good for the
environment and the Upper Peninsula’s
wallet. Learn more about the research–
and why you should save the propane
for your grill–in the Michigan Tech
News.
Jake Soter (EE/CPE ’19, MBA ’20)
was on Husky Innovate for a virtual
talk on Oct. 8th to discuss the founding
of the “SwimSmart Warning Systems,”
which was co-founded with Dr. An-
drew Barnard (Assoc. Prof., ME-EM).
Read more about this Husky-built Beach
Warning System in the Michigan Tech
News.
Ryan Thompson (BSME ‘19) came to
campus on 25 October to showcase the
old school bus he converted into a tiny
mobile home. The bus is 40 feet long
and has approximately 225 square feet
of living space, and it is designed to be
fully off-grid: it is equipped with solar
power, 100 gallons of fresh water, a
composting toilet, and propane appli-
ances. Thompson purchased the bus in
December 2020 and documents his ex-
periences on social media. You can
find him @seekingdiscovery on Tik-
Tok, Facebook, and YouTube, and
@seeking_discovery on Instagram.
Read the article in the Michigan Tech
Sustainability Blog.
Rebecca Ufkes
(BSME ‘87), Pres-
ident of Ufkes
Holdings, was one
of four Michigan
Tech alumni fea-
tured at the final
session in the In-
novators in Indus-
try series held on 8
November. The session was titled
“Entrepreneurship, Startups, and Ven-
ture Capital.” Read more about the ses-
sion on the COE Newsblog.
Page 5
Current Contracts and Grants
Bar-Ziv, Ezra (PI, ME-EM/APSRC):
“Commercialization of Waste Torre-
faction Technology Stage - 1”; spon-
sor: Zi Technologies; total award:
$101,384.
Blough, Jason (PI, ME-EM/AIM),
and Jim De Clerck (co-PI, ME-EM):
“Full Field Dynamic Response for
Simulation”; sponsor: Honeywell Fed-
eral Manufacturing & Technologies,
LLC; total award: $94,312.
Dyreson, Ana (PI, ME-EM/GLRC),
Andrew Barnard and Jeremy Worm
(Co-PI’s, ME-EM/APSRC), and Xinyu
Ye (Co-PI, CEGE): “Mackinac Marine
EV Solutions”: sponsor: Mackinac
Economic Alliance; total award:
$100,000.
Ra, Youngchul (PI, ME-EM/APSRC):
“Investigation on the North American
Synthetic Fuels and Analysis of Their
Chemical Reaction Characteristics”;
sponsor: Hyundai America Technical
Center Inc.; total award: $135,000.
Wang, Zequn (Co-PI, ME-EM), Paul
Sanders (PI, MSE/IMP), Joseph
Licavoli, (Co-PI, MSE): “Hybrid
Structured Nickle Superalloys to Ad-
dress Price Volatility and Weld/ Weld
Repair Based Supply Chain Issues”,
sponsor: US Department of Energy;
total award: $400,000.
University News & Awards
The Oct. 4 official opening of the
Michigan Tech Grand Traverse Area
research workspace was the focus of
a Traverse City Record-Eagle news
story, which was also picked up by
Yahoo! News.
The latest session of the Health Re-
search Institute’s COVID-19 Town
Hall Series was covered by ABC 10.
Michigan Tech’s women’s volleyball
team was the number 20 seed for the
GLIAC Tournament and is No. 1 in
the Midwest.
Michigan Tech came in at No. 3 on the
Best Colleges in Michigan 2021 list in
Canada’s University Magazine.
The dedication of a new skate rental
center at the John MacInnes Student
Ice Arena in honor of Charlotte Jen-
kins and alumna Cheryl DePuydt was
covered by WJMN Local 3.
Michigan Tech’s football team won its
11th consecutive Miner’s Cup after
defeating rival Northern Michigan
University at the Superior Dome on 16
October.
Michigan Tech’s men’s cross country
finished second at the Great Lakes
Intercollegiate Athletic Conference
Championships on 23 October, and the
women’s cross country team finished
fourth. Sam Lange (jr./ME) finished
13th for the men’s team.
October - December 2021
Blizzard catches big air above Michigan Tech’s Mont Ripley Ski Area.
Students get hands-on experience parcipang in a
reverse engineering exercise in an Mechanical Engineering Pracce session.
Past Events
The ME-EM Senior Recognition Banquet - Order of the
Engineer Ceremony was held on December 7 in the Me-
morial Union Ballroom. 68 seniors attended the ceremony.
Ms. Leah Lemanski (BSME ‘95), Nexteer Automotive,
Executive Director – NA EPS Applications, gave the key-
note address.
The Order of the Engineer is a solemn obligation to oneself
“to uphold devotion to the standards and the dignity of [the
engineering] profession.” It is an obligation to turn to
“practical use, the principles of science and the means of
technology... to serve humanity by making the best use of
earth’s precious wealth.”
Page 6
October - December 2021
Husky Bites (ME-EM guests featured Oct to Dec, 2021)
Oct 18 - Tiny House Design - Weather, Watts & Materials
We learned how to build a Tiny House fit for the UP. Last
spring, the students in Michigan Tech's Green Campus En-
terprise had a Tiny House team, and MSE Prof. Paul Sand-
ers was their client. The resulting Tiny House in Bete Gris
is now mostly done. It is affordable, beautiful, sustainable,
carbon-neutral/net zero, and cozy and warm for year round
use, too. The team's consultant, green building design spe-
cialist and former instructor (and ME-EM alum), was Dave
Bach (BSME ‘69). Read more: COE blog post.
"Your reputaon is precious. It’s hard to repair,
and you must protect it at all costs."
Colleen L. Jones-Cervantes (BSME ‘83)
Dave Bach (BSME ‘69)
Owner, Dave Bach Designs,
Houghton, MI
Nov 8 - Manned Mars Missions: New Materials
Dr. Greg Odegard (Prof., ME-EM) shared how his team of
researchers at Michigan Tech go about developing new ultra
-light weight structural materials to significantly cut fuel
costs for sending humans to Mars—and beyond.
Dr. Bill Predebon (Prof. and ME-EM Dept Chair) joined the
conversation. He has been at Michigan Tech since 1975 (46
years, and 24 years as department chair). Bill plans to retire
this summer.
Dr. Greg Odegard, John O. Hallquist
Endowed Chair in Computaonal
Mechanics, ME-EM
Dr. Bill Predebon, J.S. Endowed
Professor and Dept. Chair, ME-EM
Arst rendering of the Tiny House.
Credit: Sierra Braun
Nov 15 - What’s next, NEXTCAR?
Dr. Bo Chen (Prof., ME-EM) and her former student
Dr. Joe Oncken (PhD, ME-EM ‘20) talk about how engi-
neers go about designing and creating the crucial elements
of an all-electric vehicle ecosystem. Chen and her research
team at Michigan Tech envision an all-electric future. They
develop advanced control algorithms to build the nation’s
electric vehicle charging infrastructure and highly efficient
hybrid electric vehicles, integrating with advanced sensing
technologies that allow for predictive control in real time.
These technologies enable the kind of vehicle-to-vehicle
and vehicle-to-infrastructure communication that will re-
duce our nation’s energy consumption.
Dr. Bo Chen and Dr. Joe Oncken
among the eet, outside at the APSRC.
Michigan Tech’s NEXTCAR research
delivers direct implementaon of
engineering soluons, tested within
the realies of on-road condions.
