Faculty
Solomon Adera
Assistant Professor, Mechanical Engineering
Research Interests: Adera obtained his Ph. D. in Mechanical Engineering from MIT and has worked as a postdoc in the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences at Harvard University. His research interests include fundamental studies of heat and mass transfer, fluid-structure interactions and water-energy systems.
Rayhaneh Akhavan
Associate Professor, Mechanical Engineering
Research Interests: Fluid mechanics; turbulence physics, modeling, and control; bio-mimetic fluid dynamics; multi-scale modeling and simulation, including direct, large-eddy and stochastic simulations; pseudo-spectral and lattice Boltzmann methods; parallel computing.
Ellen Arruda
Tim Manganello/BorgWarner Department Chair, Mechanical Engineering; Professor, Mechanical Engineering; Professor, Biomedical Engineering; Professor, Program in Macromolecular Science and Engineering; Maria Comninou Collegiate Professor of Mechanical Engineering
Research Interests: Mechanical behavior of materials including polymers, elastomers and soft tissue; tissue engineering of tendon and muscle constructs; constitutive modeling of growth, remodeling and functional adaptation in soft tissue; deformation mechanisms in polymers; crystal transformation mechanisms in semi-crystalline polymers; split Hopkinson pressure bar testing of polymers and elastomers for high strain rate applications including crashworthiness in automotive applications.
Jesse Austin-Breneman
Assistant Professor, Mechanical Engineering
Research Interests: Design research, complex systems design, design of product eco-systems, multi-disciplinary design teams, multi-disciplinary design optimization, modeling of team-based design decision-making, design for emerging markets, socially-engaged design, design for entrepreneurship.
Shorya Awtar
Associate Professor, Mechanical Engineering
Research Interests: Precision engineering; mechatronics; flexure mechanisms; high-precision high-bandwidth motion systems for applications in nanometrology and nanomanufacturing; MEMS sensors and actuators; minimally invasive surgery.
Rohini Bala Chandran
Assistant Professor, Mechanical Engineering
Research Interests: Thermal and fluid sciences, multiscale computational model development, radiative heat transfer, optics, chemical kinetics of heterogeneous reactions, electrochemical engineering, semiconductor physics
James Barber
Professor, Mechanical Engineering; Arthur F. Thurnau Professor, Mechanical Engineering; Jon R. & Beverly S. Holt Professor, College of Engineering
Research Interests: Solid mechanics including thermoelasticity; elasticity; solidification; contact mechanics; tribology; elastodynamics, fracture; stability of thermoelastic contact; friction, contact of rough surfaces.
Kira Barton
Associate Professor, Mechanical Engineering ; Miller Faculty Scholar
Research Interests: Control theory and applications; high precision motion control; iterative learning control; high-performance nano-scale printing for electrical and biomedical applications; micro/nano-manufacturing; control for manufacturing; cooperative control; control for autonomous vehicles
Andre Boehman
Professor, Mechanical Engineering; Director, W.E. Lay Automotive Laboratory
Research Interests: Automotive engineering including: fuel production and formulation, alternative fuels, diesel combustion, spark ignition combustion, autoignition, spray behavior, particulate emissions, NOx emissions, emissions control, thermodynamics of energy conversion systems
Claus Borgnakke
Associate Professor, Mechanical Engineering
Research Interests: Combustion and turbulence modeling; engine combustion; pollutant formation; thermodynamic properties; diesel engine combustion; natural gas operation of diesels; compressible turbulence models; metal hydride heat pumps and hydrogen storage; refrigerant properties.
Diann Brei
Professor, Mechanical Engineering
Research Interests: Design; smart materials and structures; sensor and actuator design; structural dynamics; vibration and noise control; mechatronics, smart mechanisms
Ashley Bucsek
Assistant Professor, Mechanical Engineering
Research Interests: Mechanical behavior of materials; micromechanical modeling; in situ/in operando characterization including X-ray imaging and diffraction; functional materials; lightweight structural metals; shape memory alloys; phase transformations; energy conversion
Jesse Capecelatro
Assistant Professor, Mechanical Engineering
Research Interests: Fluid mechanics, with an emphasis on computational methods, multiphase and granular flow, turbulence, combustion, and high-performance computing. Applications include renewable energy, carbon capture, environmental flows, aerosols, turbomachinery, and space.
Steve Ceccio
Professor, Mechanical Engineering; Vincent T and Gloria M Gorguze Professor of Engineering
Research Interests: Fluid mechanics with emphasis on experimental methods, multiphase flows, high Reynolds number flows, cavitation and bubbly flows, optical flow measurement methods, electrical and radiation based tomography.
Daniel Cooper
Assistant Professor, Mechanical Engineering
Research Interests: My research, which focuses on making impactful contributions to the areas of manufacturing and sustainability, considers multiple scales: identifying significant opportunities to cut emissions and/or costs by conducting large scale analyses on processes, factories and material supply chains, and pursuing a rigorous technical analysis in order to capitalize on the opportunities.
Shanna Daly
Associate Professor, Mechanical Engineering ; Miller Faculty Scholar
Research Interests: Front-end design processes; idea generation; creativity and innovation; design cognition; design ethnography; design decision-making; design problem finding and framing; concept development; cross-disciplinary design practices; prototypes; divergent and convergent thinking; design education
Neil Dasgupta
Associate Professor, Mechanical Engineering; Associate Professor, Materials Science and Engineering; Miller Faculty Scholar
Research Interests: Renewable energy and energy storage; nanomanufacturing; atomic layer deposition; high-resolution microscopy and spectroscopy of nanomaterials; surface science and catalysis; electrochemistry; nanowires; energy policy and economics
David Dowling
Professor, Mechanical Engineering
Research Interests: Fluid mechanics and acoustics; turbulence and turbulent mixing; fluid-structure interaction, free-surface flows; liquid polymer flow.
Bogdan Epureanu
Professor, Mechanical Engineering ; Arthur F. Thurnau Professor, Mechanical Engineering; Director, Automotive Research Center
Research Interests: Research focuses on biological and epidemiological systems, aerospace and automotive structures, and turbomachinery. Examples include creating novel mechano-chemical dynamic models of nanoscale intracellular transport processes, developing the next generation of highly-sensitive diagnosis and monitoring techniques, discovering novel methods for forecasting tipping points in complex systems such as disease epidemics and ecological systems, developing innovative reduced order models of multi-physics systems such as Li-ion batteries and complex structures, creating advanced system identification and control methodologies for smart structures and fluid-structural systems. These blend novel methods and theory with fundamental experiments in linear and nonlinear dynamics from macro to nano-scale.
Jon Estrada
Assistant Professor, Mechanical Engineering
Research Interests: Experimental mechanics of soft and bio-materials, material characterization including high speed rheometry, magnetic resonance, and inverse techniques, inertial cavitation dynamics, photoacoustic and laser microscopy, cell mechanics, image processing techniques, digital image and volume correlation
Yue Fan
Assistant Professor, Mechanical Engineering
Research Interests: Long time scale atomistic simulation, irradiation defects structure evolution in structure materials, deformation mechanisms and mechanical properties in amorphous system
Nima Fazeli
Assistant Professor, Mechanical Engineering
Research Interests: Robotic Manipulation, inference and state-estimation, physics-based learning and semantic AI, controls for hybrid systems, contact modeling for robots interactions.
Jianping Fu
Professor, Mechanical Engineering; Professor, Biomedical Engineering; Professor, Cell and Developmental Biology
Research Interests: Cell Mechanics, Mechanobiology, Stem Cell Bioengineering, Developmental Bioengineering, and BioMEMS
Krishna Garikipati
Professor, Mechanical Engineering; Professor, Mathematics
Research Interests: Prof. Garikipati's work draws from nonlinear mechanics, materials physics, applied mathematics and numerical methods. He is particularly interested in problems of mathematical biology, biophysics and the mechanics of biology. Current research interests include: (1) growth and remodeling or biological tissue, cell adhesion and cell mechanics (2) stress-defect interactions and transport in semiconductor/microelectronic materials, and (3) multiscale aspects of material behavior with an emphasis on plasticity at small scales.
Vikram Gavini
Professor, Mechanical Engineering ; Professor, Materials Science and Engineering
Research Interests: Developing computational and mathematical tools for electronic structure calculations at macroscopic scales, multi-scale modeling, analysis of approximation theories, electronic structure studies on defects in solids.
Karl Grosh
Professor, Mechanical Engineering; ME Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI) Lead; Professor, Biomedical Engineering Department
Research Interests: Cochlear mechanics and hearing; acoustic and vibrational transducers; prosthetics and sensors for biomedical applications; MEMS; distributed, active metamaterials; mechanics and computational mechanics; structural acoustics.
Xun (Ryan) Huan
Assistant Professor, Mechanical Engineering
Research Interests: Uncertainty quantification, data-driven modeling, numerical optimization, optimal experimental design, Bayesian analysis, machine learning
Greg Hulbert
Professor, Mechanical Engineering
Research Interests: Computational mechanics; finite element methods; structural dynamics; flexible multibody dynamics; dynamic response of composites; vehicle dynamics; engineering mechanics education.
Eric Johnsen
Associate Professor, Mechanical Engineering
Research Interests: Fluid mechanics, with an emphasis on multiphase flow, cavitation and bubble dynamics, computational fluid dynamics, high-speed flow and shock waves, turbulence and mixing, interfacial instabilities, plasmas, and high-performance computing. Applications include biomedical engineering, energy, aeronautics, turbomachinery, naval engineering and high-energy density physics.
Massoud Kaviany
Professor, Mechanical Engineering; Professor, Applied Physics
Research Interests: Heat Transfer Physics: efficient and innovative energy transport and conversion (transformation) through atomic tailoring of the principal energy carriers (phonon, electron, fluid particle, and photon). Current energy-related projects include thermoelectricity, phonoelectricity, thermal switch, and multidimensional wicks for record conductance and heat flux.
Sridhar Kota
Professor, Mechanical Engineering; Herrick Professor of Engineering; Executive Director, MForesight
Research Interests: Bio-inspired engineering design - soft robots, complaint and shape-adaptive systems; Topology, size and shape optimization of complaint mechanisms - product design for no-assembly; Design for manufacturability; Technology policy and advanced manufacturing.
Katsuo Kurabayashi
Professor, Mechanical Engineering; Professor, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
Research Interests: Microelectromechanical systems; microscale thermal engineering and design; heat transfer in micro/nano structures; semiconductor processing for micromechanical structure fabrication; microfluidic device; sensors and actuators.
David Kwabi
Assistant Professor, Mechanical Engineering
Research Interests: Electrochemistry, energy storage materials, CO2 capture and storage, electrodeposition, solar energy conversion, organic batteries, renewable energy, climate change mitigation
Xiaogan Liang
Associate Professor, Mechanical Engineering
Research Interests: Advanced Nanofabrication and Nanomanufacturing Technologies Nanolithography in Combination with Bottom-Up Methods for Assembling and Tailoring Nanomaterials into Functional Device Architectures Scale-up Applications in Photovoltaics, Nanoelectronics and Nanophotonics, Nanofluidic Devices, and Integrated Bio/Chemical Sensors
Allen Liu
Associate Professor, Mechanical Engineering; Associate Professor, Biomedical Engineering
Research Interests: Mechanobiology and mechanotransduction, bottom-up synthetic biology, droplet microfluidics, systems biology of endocytosis and cell migration.
Wei Lu
Professor, Mechanical Engineering
Research Interests: Energy storage and electrochemistry; simulation of nano/microstructure evolution; mechanics in nano/micro systems; advanced manufacturing; mechanical properties and performance of advanced materials and relation to microstructures.
Jyoti Mazumder
Professor, Mechanical Engineering; Robert H. Lurie Professor of Mechanical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering; Professor, Materials Science and Engineering; Director, Center for Laser-Aided Intelligent Manufacturing, Mechanical Engineering; Director, NSF I/UCRC for Lasers and Plasmas for Advanced Manufacturing, U of M Site
Research Interests: Transforming the field of materials processing by laser from a technological art to scientifically based engineering; laser aided manufacturing; atom to application; technical approach including on-line optical diagnostics, transport phenomena modeling, non-equilibrium synthesis of materials with tailored properties, and their evaluation and characterization.
Edgar Meyhofer
Professor, Mechanical Engineering; Professor, Biomedical Engineering
Research Interests: Nanotechnology, bionanotechnology, cellular and molecular biomechanics
Jun Ni
Professor, Mechanical Engineering; Shien-Ming (Sam) Wu Collegiate Professor of Manufacturing Science; Director, S.M. Wu Manufacturing Research Center; Co-Director, Multi-Campus National Science Foundation Center for Intelligent Maintenance Systems; Deputy Director, NSF-Engineering Research Center for Reconfigurable Manufacturing Systems
Research Interests: Intelligent Maintenance of Large Industrial Systems; Optimization of Manufacturing Operations; Manufacturing Process Modeling, Analysis and Design; Precision Engineering and Metrology; Quality Control Methods.
Chinedum Okwudire
Associate Professor, Mechanical Engineering
Research Interests: Manufacturing Automation: with key applications in 3-D printing, nano-positioning, machining, and smart manufacturing systems; Vehicle Automation: with key applications in electric power assist steering, steer-by-wire, and electric vehicle charging.
Kenn Oldham
Professor, Mechanical Engineering ; Associate Chair for Undergraduate Education, Mechanical Engineering
Research Interests: MEMS and micro-mechatronic systems; design for controllability; optimal and robust control; micro-robotics; low-power servo control; vibration control; smart structures.
Gabor Orosz
Associate Professor, Mechanical Engineering
Research Interests: Nonlinear dynamics and control, time delay systems, reinforcement learning, connected and automated vehicles, traffic flow, biological networks.
Jwo Pan
Professor, Mechanical Engineering
Research Interests: Fracture and failure of materials, fatigue testing and modeling, constitutive laws for porous and pressure-sensitive materials, sheet metal forming, crankshaft fillet rolling and residual stresses, rolling modeling and fatigue, modeling/testing of fusion welds, solid state welds and mechanical joints, modeling/testing of deformation behavior of lithium-ion battery
Panos Papalambros
Professor, Mechanical Engineering; James B Angell Distinguished University Professor & Donald C Graham Professor; Professor of Art and Design; Professor of Architecture
Research Interests: Design optimization; large scale system synthesis; automotive systems design, including hybrid vehicles; eco-design; product design.
Huei Peng
Professor, Mechanical Engineering; US Director, US-China Clean Energy Research Center-Clean Vehicle Consortium; Roger L. McCarthy Professor ; U-M MCity Director
Research Interests: Vehicle dynamics and control; electromechanical systems; optimal control; human driver modeling; vehicle active safety systems; control of hybrid and fuel cell vehicles; energy system design and control for mobile robots.
Noel Perkins
Professor, Mechanical Engineering; Arthur F. Thurnau Professor, Mechanical Engineering; Donald T. Greenwood Collegiate Professor of Mechanical Engineering
Research Interests: Dynamics including vibration and stability, nonlinear dynamics, experimental methods. Applications to nonlinear dynamics of elastic cables, nonlinear fluid-structure interaction, DNA supercoiling, sports engineering, MEMS inertial sensor applications, vehicle systems, axially moving materials.
Kevin Pipe
Professor, Mechanical Engineering ; Professor, Applied Physics Program; Professor, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Department ; Director of Graduate Degree Programs, College of Engineering
Research Interests: Microscale heat transfer, especially related to electronic and optoelectronic devices; thermoelectric energy conversion; scanning probe techniques; photovoltaic energy conversion; organic and hybrid organic/inorganic devices.
Bogdan Popa
Assistant Professor, Mechanical Engineering
Research Interests: Design, optimization, and dynamics of new generations of engineered materials (metamaterials) that allow improved control over the propagation of acoustic, elastic and electromagnetic waves with applications in biomedical engineering, telecommunications, aero- and underwater acoustics; noise control; smart materials; mechatronics.
Pramod Sangi Reddy
Professor, Mechanical Engineering; Professor, Materials Science and Engineering; Associate Chair for Research
Research Interests: Nanoscale charge and energy transport, thermoelectric devices, microscale heat transfer, organic photovoltaics, scanning probe microscopy and optics.
Elliott Rouse
Assistant Professor, Mechanical Engineering
Research Interests: Precision machine design; development of exoskeletons and robotic prostheses; dynamics of human locomotion; biomedical system identification; neural control of movement; biomechanics; human performance augmentation
Kazu Saitou
Professor, Mechanical Engineering
Research Interests: Computer modeling and optimal synthesis of mechanical (and non-mechanical) products and systems. Computational design for manufacture/assembly/environment. Simultaneous design of products/manufacturing systems/supply chains. Computer modeling and synthesis of MEMS/NEMS. Chemo/bio-informatics. Structure-based virtual screening for drug discovery and design.
Jeff Sakamoto
Associate Professor, Mechanical Engineering
Research Interests: As a materials scientist and engineer with an interest in synthesis, processing, and functionalization of ceramics and hydrogels, his research is highly interdisciplinary guided by the fields of energy storage/conversion and biomedicine.
Bill Schultz
Professor, Mechanical Engineering; Professor, Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering; Faculty Director, Ginsberg Center
Research Interests: Fluid mechanics including waves, computation, stability, asymptotics; steep and breaking waves; spectral method development; mechanics of fish swimming; saliva rheology and swallowing physics,fluid mechanics of industrial processes including laser and arc welding, coating and mixing, and tribology.
Albert Shih
Professor, Mechanical Engineering; Professor, Biomedical Engineering; Faculty Member, Integrative Systems and Design
Research Interests: Design and manufacturing; biomedical device design; biomedical manufacturing; medical innovation; surgical thermal management; machining of advanced engineering materials; micro manufacturing; precision engineering; optical metrology.
Alex Shorter
Assistant Professor, Mechanical Engineering
Research Interests: Design, Fabrication, Control and Evaluation of Human Assist Devices, Gait Analysis, Biomechanics, Instrument Design.
Volker Sick
Professor, Mechanical Engineering; Arthur F. Thurnau Professor, Mechanical Engineering; DTE Energy Professor of Advanced Energy Research; Director, Global Co2 Initiative
Research Interests: Development and application of optical measurement techniques for studies of mass and energy transfer and diseases of the human eye. Development and deployment of CO2-utilization technologies.
Donald Siegel
Professor, Mechanical Engineering ; Associate Chair for Graduate Education, Mechanical Engineering
Research Interests: Development of high-capacity materials and systems for energy storage applications; computational materials science; nanoscale chemistry and its impact on the mechanical properties of materials; thermodynamics and kinetics of phase transformations; multi-scale modeling; integrated computational materials engineering
Kathleen Sienko
Professor, Mechanical Engineering; Arthur F. Thurnau Professor, Mechanical Engineering
Research Interests: Sensory augmentation, rehabilitation engineering, biomechanics, medical device design (emphasis on global health contexts and task-shifting devices), design science, engineering design education
Steve Skerlos
Professor, Mechanical Engineering; Professor, Civil and Environmental Engineering; Arthur F. Thurnau Professor, Mechanical Engineering
Research Interests: Environmental and sustainable technology systems; life cycle product design optimization; pollution prevention technologies for manufacturing; metalworking fluid formulation and performance; membrane filtration; supercritical fluid delivery of lubricants; biological detection and control in aqueous systems; technology policy analysis.
Anna Stefanopoulou
Professor, Mechanical Engineering; William Clay Ford Professor of Technology
Research Interests: Estimation and control of internal combustion engines and electrochemical processes such as fuel cells and batteries
Jeffrey Stein
Professor, Mechanical Engineering; Associate Director, Automotive Research Center
Research Interests: Systems and control including machine design, control, monitoring, and diagnostics; physical system modeling; automated modeling; bond graph theory; proper modeling of active suspensions; proper vehicle handling and ride models; high efficiency dynamic formulations for vehicle dynamics; monitoring and control of thermally induced spindle bearing loads; design and control of high speed spindles and novel milling machines.
Michael Thouless
Professor, Mechanical Engineering; Professor, Materials Science and Engineering; Arthur F. Thurnau Professor, Mechanical Engineering; Janine Johnson Weins Professor; ME Associate Chair for Facilities and Planning
Research Interests: Micromechanics modeling of materials; interfacial fracture mechanics and adhesion; mechanical properties of thin films and coatings; toughening mechanisms in polymers; mechanical properties of structural adhesives.
Dawn Tilbury
Professor, Mechanical Engineering; Professor, Electrical Engineering & Computer Science
Research Interests: Control theory and applications; logic control for manufacturing systems including diagnostics, fault handling, and recovery; modular control systems; networked control systems; performance management of computing systems; web-based tutorials for controls education.
Serife Tol
Assistant Professor, Mechanical Engineering
Research Interests: Dynamical systems, smart materials, metamaterials, phononic crystals, electromechanical systems, energy harvesting, mechanical vibrations, wave propagation
Aaron Towne
Assistant Professor, Mechanical Engineering
Research Interests: Fluid mechanics, low-order modeling, flow control
Ramanarayan Vasudevan
Assistant Professor, Mechanical Engineering
Research Interests: Optimization, modeling, design and control of nonlinear and hybrid dynamical systems especially as related to human and robot interaction with one another and the environment; specific applications include the locomotion of legged robots, driver modeling for retraining and semiautonomous vehicle active safety systems, and the development of techniques to automate diagnostic and rehabilitative tasks.
Angela Violi
Professor, Mechanical Engineering; Professor, Chemical Engineering; Professor, Biomedical Engineering; Professor, Macromolecular Science and Engineering; Professor, Applied Physics; Professor, Biophysics
Research Interests: Multiscale simulations of complex systems, nanoparticle growth and self-assembly, nanoparticle interactions with biomolecular systems, applied chemical kinetics, aerosols. Chemical and physical properties of fuels, alternative fuels, lubricants.
Kon-Well Wang
Professor, Mechanical Engineering; Stephen P. Timoshenko Collegiate Professor of Mechanical Engineering
Research Interests: Structural dynamics and controls, including metastable & multi-stable metastructures, origami mechanics & dynamics, adaptive structural & materials systems, with applications in vibration & wave controls, vibration energy harvesting, structural health monitoring, and vehicle and robotics dynamics & controls.
Alan Wineman
Professor, Mechanical Engineering; Arthur F. Thurnau Professor, Mechanical Engineering
Research Interests: Mechanics of continua including nonlinear elasticity and viscoelasticity of polymers; theory of interacting continua; non-Fickian diffusion in polymers; yield-induced phenomena in polymers; modeling microstructural changes in polymers; studies in electrorheological fluids.
