The ME Department has a new initiative to reform its graduate program. The reformed graduate program allows the Department to enhance the professional development of our 3rd- and 4th-year ME Ph.D. and 2nd-year Master’s students and help them pursue diverse post-graduation careers, including academic, non-academic positions entrepreneurial career paths. The Department hosts a student-centric seminar series as part of this initiative. In the seminar, several graduate students are invited to give 3-min elevator pitches on their research projects to ME alumni from industries, startups, and national labs, assuming an audience of non-experts in their fields. Each elevator pitch talk addresses three key questions in 3 min: (1) what real-life problem your research addresses, (2) how you solve it in a unique way, and (3) what impact it would have on society. Graduate students and their advisors are invited to participate in this exciting event.
April 7, 5:00 – 6:00 pm, In-person meeting at 2505 GGB
Topic: “Design, Manufacturing, and Dynamics”
Student Speakers
Hyung SukKwon (Popa Lab)
Nishant Jalgaonkar (Awtar Lab): Nishant is a doctoral candidate in Mechanical Engineering (ME) at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. His current research is focused on understanding the causes of motion sickness in autonomous vehicles, and methods to mitigate it. During his time at UM, his research has spanned multiple fields, including the development of a novel wastewater treatment system, development of an at-home saliva collection kit to monitor sleep quality, and rehabilitation robotics. His research has led to multiple patent applications. Prior to his graduate work at UM, he has industry experience as a Design Engineer at an automotive supplier in India, as a Dean’s Fellow at Yale-NUS College in Singapore, and as a technical intern at a solar cell company in Israel.
Heejin Kim (Okwudire Lab): Heejin is a 4th year PhD student in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. She currently works at Smart and Sustainable Automation Lab at UM led by Professor Chinedum Okwudire. Prior to that, she received her MS in Mechanical Engineering at UM in 2019 and BS at Korea University in 2018. Her current research focuses on intelligent model-based feedrate optimization in manufacturing.
Revanth Damerla (Awtar Lab): Revanth is a 4th year PhD Candidate in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. His research interests include the design of new mechanisms and transmissions that can enable actuators to exceed the performance of human muscle. Ultimately, he hopes to translate this work to create a prosthetic hand that can replicate the capabilities and performance of the human hand.
Hrishikesh Danaw (Tol Lab)
Yuxin Zhai (Popa Lab)
Jesus Garcia Perez (Epureanu Lab)
Guest Alumni: Ibrahim Mohedas (NSF Program Director), Dinesh Seksaria (Former Product Development Manager at Alcoa)
Zoom Link: https://umich.zoom.us/j/93715343398 (Passcode: MEGrad2022)