ME Professor Ellen Arruda was featured in the April 2011 Sciences Addressing Asymmetric Explosive Threats (SAAET) program newsletter, part of the Office of Naval Research (ONR).
As reported in the ONR SAAET newsletter, “The current focus of Dr Arruda’s SAAET program is on the mechanical properties of non-linear, viscoelastic polymer nano-composites in high strain rate applications,” with the goal being to “develop the next generation of body and vehicle armor technologies to reduce the effects of blasts and ballistics encounters.”
The Arruda research group also focuses on the tissue engineering of soft tissues such as muscles, ligaments, and tendons. The major challenge in this area of research is attaching engineered tissues to native tissues.
In addition to being the director of the Materials Characterization Laboratory and the Soft Tissue Mechanics Laboratory and co-director of the Skeletal Tissue Engineering Laboratory, Arruda is a Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, the Society of Engineering Science (SES), and the American Academy of Mechanics. She is also a past president of the SES.