Spring 2007 Issue 1

• ALUMNI ACTIVITIES
• CoE, National Honors for ME Alumna
• Rashid Receives Benford Award
• ME Graduates Receive Faculty Appointments
• Farshid Asl: From ME to MRE
• FACULTY & STAFF NEWS
• A Reflection on the Past Year
• Galip Ulsoy Elected to NAE
• Epureanu, Ulsoy Earn Outstanding Achievement Awards
• Krishna Garikipati Completes Humboldt Fellowship
• Ellen Arruda Named Centennial Fellow
• Hong Im Receives Ralph R. Teetor Award
• Jwo Pan Named SAE Fellow
• ME Manufacturing Sets the Pace with Awards
• William W. Schultz Appointed to NSF Position
• Professor Volker Sick Named Faculty Advisor of the Year by Student Affairs
• One Advisor + Two Generations = Unique ME Experience
• Senior Engineering Technician Jerry Polashak Retires
• Professor Jun Ni, Shien-Ming (Sam) Wu Professor of Manufacturing Science
• Alan Wineman Receives Distinguished Faculty Achievement Award
• Professor Jan Shi: A Focus on Quality
• Changes in the Guard
• Sue Gow Celebrates 40 Years of Service
• Marcy Brighton Chosen as Finalist for Distinguished Staff Service Award
• STUDENTS ACTIVITIES AND AWARDS
• Let It Rain, Let It Rain, Let It Rain
• Engineering a Unique Wedding
• Family Ties x 3 for PhD Student
• MRacing is Successful Worldwide
• Hamza, Smith Receive Distinguished Achievement Awards
• ME Students Recognized as Distinguished Leaders
• Lu, Salac Receive Faculty/Student Award
• Undergraduate Student Honors & Awards
• Graduate Student Honors & Awards
• Outstanding Mentor Appreciates Teaching/Learning Opportunities
• ME Students Going Around in Circles
• ACADEMIC INITIATIVES
• Course Prepares Students for International Teamwork
• Energy in the Curriculum: Powering the Mechanical Engineer's Vision for New Technologies
• Wee Wizards to Inspire Future Engineers
• First International Engineering Summer School a Success
• New MEng Program Off to a Quick Start

 

• CREDITS

A Message from ME Department Chair Dennis Assanis:

A Reflection on the Past Year

Dear All,

It truly feels like "only yesterday" that I assumed the position of the ME Department Chair in January 2002. As I reflect on the past year -- and, inevitably, the past five years -- I am filled with both pride and humility. It has been an honor to lead the ME Department during a period filled with so many accomplishments. At the same time, I am standing in awe of what the combined talents, knowledge and dedication of the entire ME team -- composed of 70 professorial and research faculty members, 55 staff members, 1,200 students and over 16,000 alumni -- can achieve.

The Mechanical Engineering undergraduate program, ranked 4th in the country by US News and World Report, has grown to become the most popular choice among the students in the College of Engineering. As the ABET review committee commented in its final report last year, "the ME Program has done an outstanding job of articulating the linkages of its curriculum to its objectives and those of the College and the University. The program has in place a well-defined and vigorous plan by which its students, alumni, faculty and administrators are involved in the measurement, evaluation and improvement of its program." Our graduate program, ranked 5th by US News and World Report, continues to enjoy a strong national reputation and to attract a diverse and extremely motivated student body from all over the world. Our all-time high enrollment is a testimony to the strength of our curriculum and the breadth of our research portfolio. Students strike me as creative, enthusiastic, tireless in their academic and extracurricular pursuits, and ...smart! If these are the engineers of the future, I know we are in good hands. Our alumni are playing leadership roles in industry, government and academia. In fact, recent ME graduates are landing faculty positions at some of the nation's and world's top engineering schools.

The ME faculty are dedicated to teaching and mentoring our students through impressive and innovative curricular offerings. Hands-on engineering is a hallmark of the ME Department's design and manufacturing science curriculum. Building on our successes, we have introduced a new theme-based approach to provide students with additional opportunities in their ME 450 major design experience. In response to the pressing need to educate engineers to address the daunting energy challenges that the world is facing, we have developed three new courses on energy technologies and power generation. ME has also played a central role in the successful launch of the new college-wide M.Eng. degree in Global Automotive and Manufacturing Engineering. Other courses, including Global Product Development and Global Manufacturing, ensure that our students learn how to carry out engineering principles in multiple, global contexts and perspectives. Several international programs also offer students opportunities to live and work abroad, including the SJTU - UM Joint Institute that has been launched in 2006, as well as a strong partnership with the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology and the International Engineering Summer School in conjunction with TU Berlin.

Paralleling the success in its educational mission, the ME Department has been prolific in research, making strides in fundamental ME science while extending the boundaries in emerging disciplines. At the same time, ME has continually put theory into practice, "translating" laboratory breakthroughs for industrial and clinical settings. The fact that the ME department has secured once again over $27 million in research funding this year, at a time of severe financial constraints and budget cuts, shows the strong support and confidence of both public and private sponsors in the work done in our Department. Committed to addressing grand societal challenges - energy, environment, health, quality of life, national security - our faculty have pioneered research in critical and emerging areas, including energy systems, bio-systems, micro/nano-systems, while continuing to innovate as a means to enhance the competitiveness of the automotive and manufacturing industries.

The ME Department expanded its horizons this year with the hiring of four faculty members working in MEMS, bio-systems, energy-systems and nano-technology. Kathleen Sienko focuses on designing MEMS-based implantable devices and in carrying-out experiments involving human subjects to quantitatively assess clinical condition, sensory substitution and human ability to interact with machines. Kenn Oldham's research interests are in fundamentals of dynamics, control systems and electromechanical design, and the blending of design, fabrication and controls in MEMS. Shorya Awtar's interests are in precision engineering and mechatronics, with emphasis on applications at the micro and nano-scales. John Hart creates new methods and machines to synthesize nano-structured materials, control the underlying mechanisms of growth reactions, and develop energy-related applications of those materials.

Our new faculty will be in stellar company. ME faculty, again this year, have earned numerous awards and distinctions. Among those honored, our colleagues in the field of manufacturing have been recognized for not only conceiving new paradigms in manufacturing and establishing them as scientific disciplines, but also for incorporating them into industrial practice. Professor Galip Ulsoy was elected to the National Academy of Engineering -- the top honor in engineering -- for his work on the dynamics of axially moving elastic materials and their implementation in automotive and manufacturing systems. Professor Jun Ni, the inaugural dean of the Shanghai Jiao Tong University - UM Joint Institute, was named the Shieng-Min (Sam) Wu Professor of Manufacturing Science. And two ME professors earned prestigious manufacturing awards from the American Society of Mechanical Engineers: Yoram Koren, the M. Eugene Merchant Manufacturing Medal; and Jyotirmoy Mazumder, the 2006 William T. Ennor Manufacturing Technology Award.

This past year, our two ME Associate Chairs, Professor Greg Hulbert and Professor Arvind Atreya, who have been the Directors of our Undergraduate and Graduate Programs since June 2002 and September 2003, respectively, have completed their terms of service. Thanks to their fairness, sound analytical judgment and unselfishness, they have both served the ME Department and our students with a great sense of responsibility and dedication, and significantly contributed to the excellence of our academic programs. Replacing Greg and Arvind, our new Associate Chairs, Professor David Dowling and Professor Karl Grosh, bring their energy and enthusiasm to our Academic Service Office and the ME Department's administrative team since January 2007.

It is impossible to be as productive a department as we have been without dedicated staff. Marcy Brighton, who served as the ME Department's Administrative Manager since 2000, was chosen as a finalist for the University's 2006 Distinguished Service Award. We wish her the best in her new position as Director of Financial Planning and Management in the College of Engineering, a well-deserved promotion. We welcome on board Merlis Nolan as the new ME Administrative Manager and look forward to working with her. And we are thrilled to recognize Lynn Buege, Arlene Schneider and Sue Gow on their 40 years of loyal service to the University, many of them spent in ME.

Success does not come without challenges. One of the consequences of our growth in enrollment and personnel, our curricular innovations, and the expansion of our research into emerging areas has been the increasing need for additional and different in nature lab, classroom and office space. As the culmination of strategic planning efforts over the past three years, a major addition and remodeling of GG Brown Laboratory at an estimated cost of $125M has emerged as one of the highest two priorities in the five year, all campus master plan. This planned expansion will allow the ME Department to remain competitive with peer institutions, continue to provide top-notch engineering talent, support manufacturing and industry in the state, and conduct research in important fields such as energy and nanotechnology. While significant effort remains ahead to transform this vision into reality, the first step has clearly been taken.

As many of you know, I will be stepping down from the position of ME Chair at the end of the 2006-07 academic year. I am grateful for the time I have served leading our Department through a period of rapid change for the world and for Mechanical Engineering education, research and practice. I feel that our collective accomplishments have strategically positioned ME to face the challenges of the future. Though the work never ends, I am confident that our ME Department will continue to build upon our current foundation of excellence to take the lead, nationally and internationally in defining the future of Mechanical Engineering. In closing, I wish to sincerely thank all of you - dedicated faculty and staff, hard working students and loyal alumni - for your trust, support and collaboration all these years.

Sincerely,

Dennis N. Assanis
Chair, Mechanical Engineering
Jon R. and Beverly S. Holt Professor of Engineering