Mechanical Engineering Department celebrates 2021-22 successes
The Department of Mechanical Engineering at the Thomas J. Watson College of Engineering and Applied Science has had a productive academic year in 2021-22, including innovative research and student achievement.
Faculty news
As of Aug. 1, Professor Bruce Murray has stepped down as the chair of the department and will officially retire this fall. He has served as chair since 2019 and has been a member of the Watson faculty since 1997. Associate Professor Paul Chiarot, a faculty member since 2011, has been elevated to department chair.
In fall 2021, Professor Roy McGrann retired after two decades on the ME faculty. For many Watson alumni, McGrann is best remembered as director of the first-year Engineering Design Division program (2004-08) and as the co-founder and co-director of the college’s minor in sustainability engineering.
Professor SB Park, who has researched electronics packaging for nearly 30 years as the director of Binghamton University’s Integrated Electronics Engineering Center (IEEC), was named a fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) last fall.
Professor Mohammad Younis, an ME faculty member from 2004-13, returned to Watson in fall 2021 after teaching for eight years at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) in Saudi Arabia.
Research news
Associate Professor Shahrzad “Sherry” Towfighian is developing better monitoring of knee replacements using sensors that generate their own power through movement. She received a five-year, $2,326,521 grant from the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases to further research she began several years ago.
Distinguished Professor Ron Miles; Jian Zhou, PhD ’18 (now doing postdoctoral research at the Argonne National Laboratory); and Junpeng Lai, a current PhD student in Miles’ lab, published an article on orb-weaving spiders — the species featured in the classic children’s book “Charlotte’s Web” — showing that the spiders use their webs as extended auditory arrays to capture sounds, possibly giving spiders advanced warning of incoming prey or predators.
Assistant Professor Kaiyan Yu received a five-year, $588,608 National Science Foundation CAREER Award to study ways to overcome issues regarding the independent manipulation of large numbers of nanoscale objects precisely and reliably. A CAREER grant supports early-career faculty who have the potential to serve as academic role models in research and education.
Yu’s work with robots large and small also was highlighted in this year’s Watson Review magazine.
Assistant Professor Pu Zhang also received a five-year, $565,337 NSF CAREER Award to research his ideas for soft electronics utilizing liquid metal networks in rubber that can deform easily while remaining highly conductive. The findings could be integrated into wearable electronics, soft robotics and bioelectronics for medical usage.
Student news
As their senior capstone project, students Salvatore Mezzatesta, Jung Wok Oh and Justin Adamczak worked with Windsor sixth-grader Delaney Dixon and her father, Chris, to improve on Delaney’s design for the Tick Stik, a device to help people find ticks on their bodies in places they can’t usually see. Their advisor was Associate Professor Peter Huang.
The Watson Review also highlighted another senior project to design and build an unmanned radio-controlled (RC) airplane that can deliver vaccine components as an entry to the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) 26th annual Design, Build, Fly competition. Advisors were Kirill Zaychik (lecturer) and Assistant Professor Pu Zhang; students were ME seniors Ilan Bregman, Daniel Coladangelo, Marwan Gomaa and Brian Lineback; ME junior Baiyina Richardson; and electrical engineering junior Xiaofei Li.
Mechanical engineering students are designing a fall-arrest system for use during gait assessments as part of the Decker College of Nursing and Health Sciences’ new Motion Analysis Research Lab.
Alumni news
Innocent Kukulu ’22 is collecting discarded phones in the U.S. and redistribute them to recipients in his native Democratic Republic of the Congo. The cost of a phone remains out of reach for many people in economically disadvantaged countries, limiting their ability to apply for jobs, keep in touch with family and feel part of the wider world.
Last fall, Binghamton University named two mechanical engineering alumni as BOLD (Bearcats of the Last Decade) 10 Under 10 Award winners: Devan Tracy ’13, who the Smart Buildings and Go Green associate manager for the Rotary and Mission Systems division of Lockheed Martin; and Christina Arbor ’12, an estimator at Turner Construction Co.
Philip Castoro, MS ’06, discussed how he earned his master’s degree while working full time at Universal Instruments, where he is currently the vice president of the company’s engineering organization.