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MEAM Seminar: “Natural Structural Materials: Lessons on Toughening Mechanisms, Weight Reduction, and Multifunctionality”

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

Structural materials that are damage-tolerant, lightweight, multifunctional, and sustainable are highly desirable for many engineering applications. Such combinations of properties are often found in the biological world. Organisms from nature construct various biological structural materials for protection, predation, body support, camouflage, etc. Despite the fact that these materials are made from limited constituent materials with […]

MEAM Ph.D. Thesis Defense: “Contacts with Dynamically Tunable Adhesion and Friction via Active Materials with Thermally Modulated Stiffness”

Room 337, Towne Building 220 South 33rd Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States

Contact interactions, including adhesion and friction, are critical to the design of many engineered systems. Currently, most systems rely on materials with static mechanical properties, requiring careful selection of materials to realize effective systems for specialized tasks. However, with advances in smart materials, system design is no longer limited to materials with static properties. There […]

MEAM Seminar: “Controlling Adhesion and Friction of Soft Interfaces by Meso-Scale Structures”

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

Discoveries of unique adhesive and frictional properties in biological attachment systems have, over the past two decades, demonstrated how near-surface architecture at lengths between the molecular (a few nm) and continuum (mm) scales can be used to achieve interesting and unique surface mechanical properties. This has spurred considerable research activity in design of meso-scale, near-surface […]

MEAM Seminar: “Powering the Future Through Hydrogen Hubs and International Partnerships for Materials and Engineering System Solutions”

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

The U.S. Department of Energy’s Energy Earthshots Initiative aims to accelerate breakthroughs of more abundant, affordable and reliable clean energy solutions, to tackle the toughest remaining barriers to addressing the climate crisis and achieving net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. Specifically, the Hydrogen Energy Shot seeks to reduce the cost of clean hydrogen by 80% in […]

MEAM Seminar: “Systemic Disadvantages for LGBTQ Professionals in STEM”

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

Researchers have documented race and gender bias in STEM for decades, but there has been little parallel examination of LGBTQ status as an axis of inequality. How do LGBTQ-identifying STEM professionals fare in STEM? Drawing on data from her NSF-funded STEM Inclusion Study, which included surveys of over 25,000 STEM workers, Dr. Cech will discuss […]

BE Seminar: “Synthetic reconstitution of complex cellular behavior” (Ahmad Khalil, Boston University)

216 Moore Building

Cells use genetically-encoded molecular circuits to execute diverse biological functions. We are developing novel tools of synthetic biology that allow us to construct regulatory circuitry inside living cells that recapitulate complex functions like those seen in nature. In this talk, I will describe how we use this approach to achieve three objectives. First, I will […]

MEAM Seminar: “Propulsive Advantages of Coordinating Multiple Jets by Colonial Marine Organisms”

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

Salps and siphonophores are widespread marine animals that occur in centimeters to meters-long colonial chains and employ multiple, pulsed swimming jets. We use a combination of approaches including in situ and lab experiments, flow visualizations and custom high-speed camera systems to understand the morphology, kinematics and fluid mechanics that underpin efficient movement in these colonial […]

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 […]