Category: News

During the first week of July, the Solar Gators student engineering team left the swamp to head west and manifest destiny on the wide-open prairies of the heartland. And the challenge that awaited them in Topeka, Kansas, was the Formula Sun Grand Prix. At the FSGP, teams from universities across North America race solar-powered cars […]

Dr. Claudius Allen Ross, Emeritus Professor of Engineering Mechanics at the UF-REEF, passed away on August 21, 2022. Dr. Ross, a 6th generation Floridian was born in Holder, Fl. He served in the United States Air Force from 1948-1952, including eight months in the Korean War. After serving his country, he entered the University of […]

Ever since he was a graduate student in the 1980s, Dr. Peter Ifju has held the Society for Experimental Mechanics (SEM) close to his heart. And after 25 years of membership, which included a stint as president in 2011-2012, he received one of the society’s highest honors on June 14. In front of about 400 […]

In a field of 60 teams at the NASA Student Launch competition on April 23, UF’s competitive rocket design team, Swamp Launch, blasted its way to 4th place overall in the launch category and 3rd place for the payload design award. The event, hosted at the Marshall Space Center in Huntsville, Alabama, is an annual […]

When NASA establishes the first ever long-term human presence on the Moon, and eventually uses that base as a springboard to Mars, this seminal achievement will undoubtedly go down as one of the most significant events in the history of our species. And humanity’s upcoming return to the magnificent desolation, as Buzz Aldrin described the […]

UF’s Formula SAE team zoomed to the second best result in its 31-year history at the Michigan International Speedway in Brooklyn, Michigan. Out of 100 teams representing universities from six countries, Gator Motorsports finished third place overall. The team’s only higher finish was second place in 2015. For FSAE competitions, students spend a year designing […]

The atrium of the Herbert Wertheim Laboratory for Engineering Excellence was transformed into a modern Colosseum on April 9, when mechanical gladiators from all over the state descended on UF for the Scuffle in the Swamp. The first open battlebots event ever to take place at UF, the tournament was hosted by Gator Robotics, a […]

Dr. Umesh Persad is coming from the Mechanical Engineering, Manufacturing and Entrepreneurship Unit at the University of Trinidad and Tobago where he was an Associate Professor of Engineering Design, Head of Department, and leader of the Design and Innovation research group. Dr. Persad brings multidisciplinary design thinking to bear on complex problems with interests in […]

While most of us were spending our quarantine time picking up new hobbies or exploring the hidden depths of Netflix, Professor Matthew Hale was writing proposals that would eventually earn him both a Young Investigator Program (YIP) award and a Defense University Research Instrumentation Program (DURIP) grant this year. The YIP will be for $510,000 […]

The Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Department welcomes Dr. Alicia Petersen! Dr. Alicia Petersen is coming from the Space Vehicles Directorate of the Air Force Research Laboratory, where she has been a Space Physics Research Fellow for the National Research Council. Through data analysis, instrumentation and modeling, Dr. Petersen researches the kinetic physics, magnetism and dynamics […]