This year, five MAE students were selected for the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP). This fellowship distinguishes students from around the nation and supports their graduate studies and research pursuits. The group includes outgoing undergraduates as well as established graduate students, highlighting the excellence of UF Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering students across the board.
Konnor Hole
Konnor Hole, a first-year graduate student in mechanical engineering at UF. He is working with Yong Huang, Ph.D., focusing on printing methods and material systems for organic synthetic tissues at the Florida Additive Manufacturing and Systems Integration Laboratory.
As an undergraduate researcher under John Schueller, Ph.D., Hole developed a design for a mobile biomass-to-fuel harvester which reduces carbon emissions and costs related to crop residue transport. Hole also worked at the Florida Department of Transportation and Hobart Brothers, sampling industry work before deciding to continue his education and academic research endeavors.
He aims to improve high-throughput printing platforms for large-scale tissue constructs and expand the possibilities for biosensing, drug delivery, and soft robotics. Ultimately, Hole hopes to move towards a future where advanced medical treatments are more accessible and effective.
“The NSF GRFP gives me freedom to dedicate all of my energy towards my goal: translating bioprinting research into tangible, accessible medical breakthroughs.”
Reece Lawrence
Reece Lawrence is a mechanical engineering graduate student in the Neuromechanics of Mobility Lab under Jessica Allen, Ph.D., where he designs protocols for capturing and analyzing movements in both the lab and the real world.
In his first year, Lawrence studied age-related declines in balance among older healthy adults. He also examined the effect of neuromuscular disorders on movement in impaired populations, particularly in children with Duchenne muscular dystrophy. This work continues Lawrence’s undergraduate research at Texas Tech, where he worked with sensor-based motion capture and movement in the Human-Centric Design Research Lab. His next step is to develop a sparse wearable sensor for assessing balance outside of the lab, allowing clinicians to monitor balance during everyday activities and design tailored rehabilitation protocols.
Born with a neuromuscular injury, Lawrence has firsthand experience with the impact of movement impairments on everyday life. With this fellowship, he plans to develop a sparse wearable sensor that bridges the gap in data collection between the lab and the real world.
“My own experience with neuromuscular injury reminds me why this work matters: better measurement data will lead to better treatment for the people who need it most.”
Dominic Meler
Dominic Meler is a first-year Ph.D. candidate in mechanical engineering in KIM Space Lab, under the direction of Sunjae Kim, Ph.D., where he explores heat transfer in two-phase cryogenic systems. His current project focuses on the use of flow boiling nitrogen to efficiently cool High Temperature Superconducting (HTS) cables. He aims to validate correlations between important boiling parameters, and to build computational models using his experimental data.
His research has numerous applications; in particular, he seeks to support in-space refueling architecture innovation, which will enable extended missions to the moon and beyond. On Earth, his findings will contribute to the growing demands for large-scale cooling technologies demanded by nuclear energy centers and increasing numbers of data centers.
Before joining MAE, Meler attended Florida Polytechnic University, where he was introduced to heat transfer research. An avid space fan from youth, he also took an internship with NASA at the Marshall Space Flight Center, where he collaborated with a team to develop a lunar construction rover chassis. In the future, he plans to return to NASA as an engineer.
Kevin Rubin
Kevin Rubin is a mechanical engineering student graduating magna cum laude with honors.
During his time at UF, Rubin led a team of undergraduate students in the Fluids and Adaptive Structures (FASt) Lab, under Patrick Musgrave, Ph.D., to develop a free-swimming soft robotic fish. He is motivated to inspire future engineers around the world – accordingly, he developed robotic fish for K-12 educational use for his undergraduate thesis.
Apart from his academic research, Rubin completed internships at Aerojet Rocketdyne, Northrop Grumman, and GE Vernova, each of which helped expand his professional experience and guided his goals for the future. Rubin was also involved with Swamp Launch, collaborating on the design and development of a solid rocket motor.
With this fellowship, Rubin will start as a Structural and Mechanical Engineer at Blue Origin under their New Graduate Rotational Program. There, he hopes to unite his fascination with space exploration and his passion for engineering. One day, Rubin dreams of becoming an astronaut.
Trevor Yates
Trevor Yates is a fourth-year undergraduate student in mechanical engineering and a researcher in UF’s Fluids and Adaptive Structures (FASt) Lab, focused on adaptive and multistable structures. Specifically, he worked under Patrick Musgrave, Ph.D., to study and develop bioinspired soft robots that mimic the body-caudal-fin propulsion of fish to explore the application of biological information processing to engineered bodies.
Over the course of his undergraduate studies, Yates tutored students in physics and calculus and completed internships at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and the Naval Surface Warfare Center in Panama City. He also spent time abroad at the Kyoto University Adaptive Robotics Lab (ARL) as a visiting researcher, cultivating cross-cultural connections and furthering his robotics expertise.
Yates is set to begin graduate studies at the California Institute of Technology in the fall. Continuing with robotics and information processing, Yates strives to better understand the capabilities of engineered materials to react to stimuli and process information.
“I would like to emphasize my gratitude for all of my mentors over these last few years; without any one of them, I wouldn’t have the amazing opportunities I’ve been given,” Trevor expressed. “I can’t thank them enough.”
By: Katherine Canev
Marketing & Communications Assistant
UF Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering