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MEAM Ph.D. Thesis Defense: “Semantics-Driven Active Perception and Navigation with Aerial Robots”

Room 313, Singh Center for Nanotechnology 3205 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States

Autonomous aerial robots today are capable of safely navigating through cluttered, GPS-denied environments while constructing an accurate map that captures geometric features such as points, lines, and planes. Such maps are crucial for low-level planning and obstacle avoidance. However, beyond offering details on the density, layout, and dimensions of the environment, these maps provide limited […]

MEAM Seminar: “Engineering Mechanics of Architected Hard-Soft Composites: Experiment, Simulation, and Theory”

Wu and Chen Auditorium (Room 101), Levine Hall 3330 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States

Enhancing the resistance of human-made brittle materials to fracture is challenging due to the limited microstructural toughening mechanisms. This seminar makes a case for engineering toughening mechanisms in brittle materials by developing purposeful architected arrangements of material inspired by natural systems. Experimental fracture mechanics in hard-soft (cementitious-elastomeric) ‘Nacre-like’ composites based on the tabulated brick-and-mortar arrangement […]

MEAM Seminar: “Engineering Innovation in Maternal and Fetal Health: The Biomechanics of High-Risk Pregnancies”

Wu & Chen Auditorium

The reproductive soft tissues that support the fetus undergo some of the most dramatic and unique growth and remodeling events in the human body. The uterus and fetal membrane must grow and stretch during pregnancy to accommodate the fetus. Simultaneously, the cervix must remodel and be a mechanical barrier to keep the fetus within the […]

MEAM Seminar: “Digital Twin Development using Physics-Informed Neural Operators”

Towne 307 220 S. 33rd Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States

Digital twins are virtual models of physical systems that allow for more computationally cost-effective evaluation and optimization. Building digital twins often involves machine learning techniques that integrate data with underlying physical laws. In this seminar, I'll explore two such techniques: Physics-Informed Neural Networks (PINNs) and operator learning. First, I'll discuss the formulation of PINNs and […]

MEAM Seminar: “Multifunctional Architected Structures”

Wu and Chen Auditorium (Room 101), Levine Hall 3330 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States

Funicular structural forms maximize the structural performance and minimize the use of materials by carrying the applied loads in the form of pure tensile/compressive axial forces. The internal structure of a bone is a classic example where material follows the principal stress directions and forms a delicate latticework of tiny, interlaced trabeculae crossing each other. […]

MEAM Ph.D. Thesis Defense: “Exploring Multimodal Sensing Across the Stack for Robot Manipulation”

Raisler Lounge (Room 225), Towne Building 220 South 33rd Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States

Despite substantial progress in robotics, achieving human-like manipulation remains a significant challenge. Existing robotic systems typically leverage human-inspired sensory modalities: vision, touch, and proprioception. However, these modalities are historically studied and integrated in isolation, leading to limited performance in complex real-world tasks that require sensing across multiple modalities for robust generalization. As a result, robots […]

Center for Soft and Living Matter Seminar: “Medium-range Order and Local Structure Fluctuations in Metallic Glass”

DRL 2N3

Amorphous materials have no long-range order, but there are ordered structures at short-range (2-5 Å), medium-range (5-20 Å), and even longer-length scales. While regular and semiregular polyhedra are often identified as short-range order in amorphous materials, the nature of the medium-range order has remained elusive. Because of the disorder, the dynamics also become far more […]

MEAM Ph.D. Thesis Defense: “Coupling Hard and Soft Interfaces to Realize Actuators and Energy Sources that Bring Robots Towards Animal Mobility”

Raisler Lounge (Room 225), Towne Building 220 South 33rd Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States

Mobile robots have shown significant advancements in agility, intelligence, and efficiency over the past few decades. However, their endurance and overall performance remain limited by the onboard power supplies. Current power sources typically restrict mobile robots to areas close to the electrical grid and necessitate heavier batteries for extended range. Energy refueling could be significantly […]

Tedori-Callinan Distinguished Lecture: “Novel Passive and Active Approaches to Fluid Friction Reduction using Polymers & Plastrons”

Wu and Chen Auditorium (Room 101), Levine Hall 3330 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States

When a superhydrophobic (SH) textured surface is immersed in water it traps a thin shiny layer of air within the texture that is known as a plastron. Contact line pinning stabilizes this Cassie-Baxter state and the patches of air trapped in the texture can act as shear-free regions that locally lower the frictional dissipation. Recent […]

MEAM Ph.D. Thesis Defense: “Impulse-Induced Nonlinear Dynamics of Flexible Mechanical Metamaterials”

Room 2C2, David Rittenhouse Laboratory Building 209 S. 33rd Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States

Mechanical metamaterials are artificially designed structures that exhibit unique properties due to their internal structure rather than their composition, e.g., negative Poisson’s ratio, tunable stiffness, and advanced thermal characteristics. While the static properties of mechanical metamaterials have been widely studied, their nonlinear dynamics remain largely unexplored, which could pave ways for innovative design and optimization […]