Michael Cherry came to ME after receiving his BS in Mechanical Engineering from Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah in April 2003. A native of San Jose, Calif., he also spent two years in Brazil, where he was a missionary for his church.
"While at BYU, I spent two years working with Larry Howell in the Compliant Mechanisms Research lab," said Cherry. "I got involved in research fairly early on, and I thoroughly enjoyed working with the design of mechanical systems that utilize flexibility and elasticity to derive their motion. I looked for other schools that would allow me to continue my pursuits in compliant mechanism research and found the Compliant Systems Design Laboratory.
"When I came to visit Michigan, I had a great impression of the lab, advisors, and graduate students working here. It felt right, so I decided that this was the place for me."
Cherry brought with him an impressive array of credentials, including having received the Tau Beta Pi undergraduate scholarship at BYU. In addition to making the BYU Dean's list several times as an undergraduate, he also received an Honorable Mention in the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship competition. This made receiving the Fellowship this year all the more gratifying.
Working with his advisor, Professor Sridhar Kota, Cherry intends to continue his specialization in the design of compliant mechanisms because he finds it a better way to design kinematic systems rather than using conventional rigid links and joints.
"Although it is more challenging to design a compliant system, it is more rewarding to me because of the things that can be accomplished," said Cherry. "My area of emphasis within compliant systems is on human augmentation. I believe that through the use of compliant systems, better designs can be achieved to enable people who are healthy to run faster and jump higher, and more importantly, they can aid and possibly restore the motion of people who are disabled."
He plans to focus solely on the lower extremities, primarily the knee and ankle joints through the use of dynamic modeling and analysis of the material mechanics common to compliant mechanism design.
Back to "Four Receive NSF Graduate Fellowships"