News

Prof. David Hahn was named Fellow of the Society for Applied Spectroscopy for his exceptional contributions to spectroscopy and service to the society. Hahn was recognized for his fundamental contributions to laser-induced plasma spectroscopy, notably his research on heat and mass transport within laser-induced plasmas and on aerosol analysis.

Tribology involves the science of friction and wear, and MAE Prof. Greg Sawyer has tackled problems ranging from space materials to contact lenses. In a recent Science paper (Erickson et al., 338, p.98, 2012), Sawyer and his colleagues used a combination of wear and hardness measurements on fossilized teeth to create three-dimensional tribological wear models, which reveal how the hadrosaurid’s unique six-tissue dental structure evolved for grinding and ecological specialization.

When the small satellite SwampSat blasted into space on November 19, 2013 aboard a Minotaur I rocket, it marked a milestone for MAE’s Space Systems Group. The CubeSat was designed and built by undergraduate and graduate students from our Small Satellite Design Club under the direction of Prof. Norman Fitz-Coy.  Fitz-Coy is among a group of prominent MAE faculty members working on many aspects of aerospace engineering and space science, including small satellites, navigation and control of autonomous space vehicles, space instrumentation and orbital mechanics.

Research leverages the basic physics of instability, topology and symmetry to study tissue cell dynamics. Cell assemblies are 3D printed by the direct extrusion of structures into volumes of yield stress material. The combination of cells and yield-stress materials provides unprecedented control of variables like size, shape, symmetry, and topology in multicellular structures.