Professor and former Mechanical Engineering Chairman, Oliver McGee, passed away on June 7, 2020. Dr. McGee will be remembered for his big smile, contagious laugh, and hard work. We send our condolences to family, friends, colleagues and all who knew him. Thank you for what you did at the WCOE, Dr. McGee!
An Undergraduate teaching Laboraory in Texas Tech University's Department of Mechanical Engineering, will be named after Alumnus Charles H. Feltz. View More
Mechanical Engineering students gathered at the Innovation Hub for a department sponsored Design Expo this past December, where capstone teams demonstrated projects they spent the past year designing, building, and testing. The event consisted of twenty-eight capstone teams with projects spanning healthcare, manufacturing, environment, safety technology, and education market areas. View More
Dr. Ed Anderson recognized for the Presidential Excellence in Teaching Award
Army scientists have demonstrated that energetic performance can be considerably improved by mixing TNT with aluminum nanoparticles. It is anticipated that this explosive finding will increase the reach of the U.S. Army firepower in the war front.
Dr. James Yang has the privilege of being one of only 3,489 Fellows out of 91,078 ASME members. By continuing to honor our Members by elevating them to the grade of Fellow, we ensure ASME's commitment to its vision "to be the essential resource for mechanical engineers and other technical professionals throughput the world for solutions that benefit humankind." The Fellow grade is truly a distinction among ASME members.
TTU's International Design Team won best design and best dressed team in the Logistic Delivery Theme in NASA's RASC-AL competition. In addition, student leader Regan Wilmann won best team lead over all competing teams.
Dr. Sivapathas Parameswaran, ME department professor, was named an American Society of Mechanical Engineers fellow on July 7, 2016
Bin Li, Ph.D. Student of Dr. James Yang, from the Human-Centric Design Research Lab, Department of Mechanical Engineering has received the 2016 ASME International Design Engineering Technical Conference and the Computer and Information in Engineering Conference (IDETC/CIE) Student Best Paper Award in Advanced Vehicle Technology.
Santiago Novoa, Suhas Pol and Luciano Castillo, won the 2016 IEEE Best Award- “Advantages of introducing engineering design techniques in mechanical engineering curricula from the student’s perspective.”
Dr. James Yang, Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering received a grant from the National Science Foundation as part of the Research Experience for Undergraduates program, for the new REU Site: Translational Research in Psychological Sciences: Human Factors at Texas Tech University. This grant is a three year project and Dr. Yang along with Drs. DeLucia, Davis, Hohman, Jones, Klein, Serra, and Talley from Department of Psychological Sciences, TTU will be working closely with eight undergraduate students each year on behavior research.
Khoi Ly, an undergraduate research student under the supervision of Dr. James Yang, has been selected to receive a travel award for the 14th Annual Regional National Occupational Research Agenda (NORA) Young/New Investigators Symposium to present his research.
Jessie Opella, an undergraduate research student under the supervision of Dr. James Yang, has been selected to receive a travel award for the 14th Annual Regional National Occupational Research Agenda (NORA) Young/New Investigators Symposium to present her research.
Abigail S Holmes, an undergraduate research student under the supervision of Dr. James Yang, has been selected to receive a travel award for the 14th Annual Regional National Occupational Research Agenda (NORA) Young/New Investigators Symposium to present her research.
Pentalum Technologies (Rehovot, Israel) and Texas Tech University (Lubbock, TX),$900,000, will collaborate on the development of a light detection and ranging, or LiDAR that would use a system of lasers and software tools and controls to increase power output from wind farms.
This is the ground array of LIDAR’s. We plan to deploy at the DOE/Sandia SWiFT site, in conjunction with the nacelle LIDAR’s which is already in motion.
Kate Lewis, a senior mechanical engineering student, has been accepted into the Common European Master's Course in Biomedical Engineering (CEMACUBE). This consortium prepares students from Europe and outside Europe for professions in biomedical engineering through a European dual-master program. This year, 33 students from 16 countries were accepted. Lewis was one of three Americans who will participate.
The program consists of four semesters. During the first year (semester one and two), students will follow lectures on all biomedical engineering subjects at one of the six universities, the third semester students move to one of the participating universities to follow lectures on a specific topic, such as medical imaging, tissue engineering or artificial organs. The fourth and last semester, a master’s project will be prepared on this specialization at one of the six participating universities: Aachen University (Germany), Trinity College Dublin (Ireland), Ghent University and Free University of Brussels (Belgium), University of Groningen (Netherlands), and Czech Technical University (Czech Republic).
Dr. Michelle Pantoya, J. W. Wright Regents Chair in Mechanical Engineering and professor, has been named to the YWCA of Lubbock's Women of Excellence academy, a program which recognizes and honors women in our community who excel in their careers. She was nominated for the award by Al Sacco Jr., dean of the Whitacre College of Engineering.
Since 1989, the YWCA has honored 185 Women of Excellence who have been inspiring others in Lubbock not only with their professional achievements, but also with the work they do for the community. They serve as role models for current and future generations.
Three Texas Tech engineering students are among 123 students from 52 U.S. higher education institutions that have been named University
Innovation Fellows by the National Center for Engineering Pathways to Innovation (Epicenter). Valente Rodriguez, a senior mechanical engineering major, Benjamin Simmons, a junior mechanical engineering major, and Francis Atore, a senior chemical engineering major, join two other Texas Tech students in this distinct honor.
The National Center for Engineering Pathways to Innovation (Epicenter) is funded by the National Science Foundation and directed by Stanford University and VentureWell (formerly NCIIA).
The University Innovation Fellows program empowers students to become agents of change at their schools. The Fellows are a national community of students in engineering and related fields who work to ensure that their peers gain the knowledge, skills and attitudes required to compete in the economy of the future. To accomplish this, the fellows advocate for lasting institutional change and create opportunities for students to engage with entrepreneurship, innovation, creativity, design thinking and venture creation at their schools. Individual Fellows as well as teams of Fellows are sponsored by faculty and administrators at their schools and selected through an application process twice annually. Following acceptance into the program, schools fund the students to go through six weeks of online training and travel to the University Innovation Fellows Annual Meetup in Silicon Valley. Throughout the year, they take part in events and conferences across the country and have opportunities to learn from one another, Epicenter mentors, and leaders in academia and industry.
View a list of all the University Innovation Fellows and learn more about the program at
http://epicenter.stanford.edu/university-innovation-fellows.
Dr. Alan Jankowski, professor of mechanical engineering, has been named a fellow of ASM International. ASM established the Fellow of the Society honor to provide recognition to members for their distinguished contributions to materials science and engineering and to develop a broadly based forum of technical and professional leaders to serve as advisors to the society.
Jankowski was elected "for pioneering the use and application of deposition technology to synthesize engineered nanostructures such as nanolaminates and metallic glasses in order to investigate physical properties, phase transformations and energy conversion."
Aimee Cloutier, a graduate student under the supervision of Dr. James Yang, has been selected to receive a travel award for the 13th Annual Regional National Occupational Research Agenda (NORA) Young/New Investigators Symposium to present her research.
Çağrı Mert Bakırcı, a doctoral student in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, was one of the speakers at TEDxTexasTechUniversity 2015 in February 2015. His research is on evolutionary biology, with a focus on evolutionary robotics, a field that tries to apply the principles of evolutionary biology to robotics and artificial intelligence. Bakırcı is aiming to make long term improvements to systems that work with artificial intelligence, using evolutionary algorithms. Bakırcı’s work attempts to create stronger bonds between engineering and basic sciences, as well as scientific community and general public.
Andrew Fillingim, an undergraduate researcher in the Biomedical Micro/Nano Device Lab, has been named one of 50 finalists for the 2015 class of Hertz Fellows. The Hertz Foundation funds graduate education for leaders in the fields of applied physical, biological and engineering sciences and encourages its awardees to pursue science for the public good.
Each fellowship consists of up to 5 years of academic fiscal support valued at $250,000 and research freedom at a participating graduate institution in the United States. Finalists represent many of the top public and private universities. Alumni of the Hertz Fellowship include two Nobel Laureates, a Fields Medal Recipient, and a National Science Medal Recipient. Fellows have also gone on to found more than 200 companies, register 3,000 patents, head major universities, lead in key positions at National Laboratories, and hold senior positions in the United States military.
Ikenna Ivenso, a doctoral student, was awarded the 2015 Student Research Achievement Award and a 2015 Education Committee Travel Award from the Biophysical Society. He presented his abstract at the Biophysical Society's 59th Annual Meeting, which was held in February 2015 in Baltimore, Maryland.
More than 6,000 scientists attended the Biophysical Society Annual Meeting, which included presentations, symposia, workshops, platform sessions, and poster sessions. The meeting provides an opportunity for biophysicists and scientists in related disciplines to share their research, collaborate, and receive feedback on their research.
Dr. Ming Chyu, a professor of mechanical engineering, has published a new book, "Advances in Engineering for Cancer Diagnosis and Treatment."
His book showcases a cross section of recent engineering advances in various aspects of cancer management to illustrate how engineering has contributed to cancer diagnosis and treatment. The goals of this book are (a) for healthcare professionals and researchers to learn Engineering approaches and methodologies addressing different cancer management issues, (b) for engineers and
engineering researchers to learn the immense opportunities in cancer research where they can contribute, and (c) to bridge the gap and to foster broader and deeper collaborations between Healthcare and Engineering, that eventually benefit cancer patients and the society. The book is published by Multi-Science Publishing Co. and is available on Amazon.
Dr. Jeff Hanson, instructor of mechanical engineering, has been named chair elect of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) Board on Student Programs.
The Board on Student Programs, under direction and oversight of the Council for the Student and Early Career Development (SECD) Sector, is responsible for providing innovative programs focused on preparing students for their professional careers through professional development, mentoring, networking, and continuing education by leveraging the ASME co-curricular teaching/learning organizations at the university and college campuses worldwide.
The chair provides guidance and leadership to ASME student sections on the university and college campuses to enhance the quality, content and relevance of their activities in preparation for their professional career.
Dr. Jared Gragg, who recently completed his dissertation in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, received second place in the Texas Tech Graduate School's Outstanding Dissertation Award Competition. His dissertation title was "Investigating the onset of slip in gait by employing probabilistic theory and optimization-based motion prediction." Gragg was nominated by Dr. James Yang, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering.
The Lubbock Chapter of the Achievement Rewards for College Students (ARCS) has selected Avik Basu and Alejandro Bilbao (pictured at left), mechanical engineering doctoral students, as ARCS Scholars for the 2014-2015 year. They were honored at an event in October and received a $5,000 stipend. ARCS funds several awards to scholars pursuing scientific research careers. These awards are merit-based, and the scholars will present a poster on their current research activities.
The Lubbock chapter was founded in 1972. The ARCS Foundation is dedicated to helping meet the country's need for scientists and engineers by providing scholarships to academically outstanding students who are United States citizens in need of financial assistance to complete their higher education, thereby contributing not only to the advancement of science, but also to the material and intellectual welfare of all people.
Shehan Haputhanthri, a graduate student in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, won the Best Graduate Student Poster Award at the ASME 8th International Conference on Energy Sustainability and 12th Fuel Cell Science, Engineering and Technology Conference held in Boston, Massachusetts in July 2014.
His poster was titled "Ammonia as an Alternate Transport Fuel: Emulsifiers for Gasoline Ammonia Fuel Blends and Real Time Engine Performance."
Zhenyi Liu, a graduate student in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, has been named a recipient of a Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM) Student Travel Award to attend the SIAM Workshop on Network Science (NS14) in July 2014 in Chicago, Illinois.
SIAM Student Travel Awards are given to help students gain the experience and exposure that comes from attending and presenting at SIAM conferences.
George Gray, an instructor of mechanical engineering, was recently featured on Texas Country Reporter, a weekly syndicated television program that airs on broadcast television across Texas.
His creative outlet and hobby is welded sculptures made from old mechanical machine components, which he calls "Up-cycled Steel Transformations."
He takes these scrap components and reassembles them into totally different configurations representing abstract visions and forms.
His artwork is available for viewing on his website at ironmongerartworks.com and the video interview is available through Texas Country Reporter's YouTube channel.
Dr. Michelle Pantoya, J. W. Wright Regents Chair in Mechanical Engineering and professor of mechanical engineering, was recently featured on the Discovery Channel Canada's program, Daily Planet. The Daily Planet is a daily science magazine show that delivers a mix of documentaries and features on current events and discoveries in science.
The segment that features Pantoya's research is part of a special series of reports titled "Future Planet," where scientific advances and potential applications of science and technology in the future are discussed. Pantoya, along with representatives from the Lubbock County Sheriff's Department, demonstrate how her research into nanoparticles has led to advances in combustion and explosions that could lead to safer ammunition, the elimination of biological threats, and many other applications.
Evan Vargas, a research assistant in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, won the Outstanding Student Presenter Award at the 2014 Spring Technical Meeting of the Central States Section of The Combustion Institute. His presentation was titled "Effects of Particle Size on Microwave Heating of Aluminum Powder Compacts."
On March 22, a cargo ship collided with a barge carrying approximately 4,000 barrels of bunker fuel oil in Galveston Bay, Texas. An estimated 168,000 gallons spilled into the Houston Ship Channel, prompting officials to shut it down for cleanup.
Within days scientists from two research consortia funded by the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative (GoMRI) were on site alongside government and industry workers, collecting baseline information to assess impacts. These two groups were the Deep Sea to Coast Connectivity in the Eastern Gulf of Mexico Consortium (Deep-C) and the Dispersion Research on Oil: Physics and Plankton Studies (DROPPS) consortium.
Scientists with DROPPS are interested in oil as it moves through the water column and the effects of different agents on its travel path. They also look at the weathering process, but their primary focus is effects on planktonic populations and how they in turn impact the oil.
Larry Brock and James Lassmann, Texas Tech mechanical engineering students, worked with members of the DROPPS team, sampled in the bay, and used a 3D holography unit. The underwater holography system is used to profile this oil and biological agents in the water column.
More information is available from a Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative article.
Shehan Haputhanthri, a doctoral student, won first place in Engineering Category 2 at the 2014 Graduate Student Research Poster Competition, hosted by the Texas Tech Graduate School.
The purpose of the Graduate Student Research Competition is to encourage students to:
Archis Marathe, a doctoral student and a Graduate Part-Time Instructor (GPTI), has been named a recipient of a Helen DeVitt Jones Excellence in Graduate Teaching Award.
This award supports excellence in teaching awards administered by the Texas Tech Graduate School. The award recognizes outstanding scholarly activity and excellence in teaching and is awarded annually during the state-wide graduate student appreciation week.
In April 2014, Texas Tech hosted the ASME District E Student Professional Development Conference (SPDC). Texas Tech students and teams, under the supervision of mechanical engineering instructor Dr. Jeff Hanson and mechanical engineering professor Dr. Atila Ertas, won awards all three categories of student competition: poster, oral and design. Michael Crump won first place in Old Guard Design competition and will attend the ASME 2014 International Mechanical Engineering Congress & Exposition (IMECE) in November to compete at the international level.
Old Guard Technical Poster Competition:
2nd Place: Kristen Smith - "Design: Manufacturing Process of a Left Ventricular Testing Device"
3rd Place: Danielle McNeese - "Unmanned Aerial Vehicle for the ASME 2014 Student Design Competition"
Old Guard Oral Presentation Competition:
1st Place: Michael Crump - "Subsea Fluid Connector"
4th Place: Brandon King - "Student Engineering Design: Triumph & Failure in a Quest of Optimization"
Student Design Competition:
2nd Place: Team Gamma - Jesse Latimer, Danielle McNeese, Casey Chapman, Jake Hempel, Brett Anderson
4th Place: The Dream Team - Courtney Billingsley, Brandon King, Andrew Fillingim, Cody Collins, Sterling Sanders, Ana Echeverria
The Department of Mechanical Engineering has been named the winner of the Teaching Academy's Departmental Excellence in Teaching Award. This award is presented in recognition of a department or comparable academic unit that has made unique and significant contributions to the teaching mission of the University and has esprit de corps in its dedication to the education of students at the undergraduate, graduate, and/or professional level.
Given as merited, it carries a $25,000 prize, to be used for the enhancement of teaching in any way the department determines. The general criterion for the award is the existence of a "teaching culture," which reflects commitment to students, makes teaching a high departmental priority, and facilitates teaching excellence throughout the department.
Read more about how the department won this award in the department's nomination packet.
Dr. Alan Barhorst, professor of mechanical engineering has been elected as a fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME).
There are more than 124,000 ASME members, and less than three percent of the total membership of the organization have been elevated to the level of fellow.
Dr. Luciano Castillo, Don Kay and Clay Cash Foundation Engineering Chair in Wind Energy and professor of mechanical engineering has been elected as a fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME).
There are more than 124,000 ASME members, and less than three percent of the total membership of the organization have been elevated to the level of fellow.
Dr. Jharna Chaudhuri, mechanical engineering department chair and professor of mechanical engineering, has been elected as a fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME).
There are more than 124,000 ASME members, and less than three percent of the total membership of the organization have been elevated to the level of fellow.
Dr. James (Jim) Harold Lawrence Jr. passed away at home surrounded by family on September 25, 2013, after a brief illness. Born on February 9, 1932 in Beatrice, Nebraska, he served as chair of the Department of Mechanical Engineering and was employed at Texas Tech for more than 40 years. He was active in the American Society of Mechanical Engineers at the national and local level, where he mentored many students.
David Branson, an instructor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, has been named an American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers, Inc. (ASHRAE) fellow. He was recognized for contributions that have had substantial impact on the advancement of the arts and/or sciences of HVAC&R and on the industry.
Alex Rivera (right) and Godlove Wanki (left), mechanical engineering majors, have been named recipients of the President's Excellence in Diversity and Equity Student Awards for 2013.
Recipients of the President's Excellence in Diversity and Equity Student Award will receive a $500 scholarship in September 2013.
Aimee Cloutier, a graduate student under the supervision of Dr. James Yang, has been selected to receive a 2013 NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP) Fellowship. She was selected based on her outstanding abilities and accomplishments,
as well as her potential to contribute to strengthening the vitality of the U.S. science and engineering enterprise. She will receive a $30,000 per year stipend for the next five years.
Drs. Brad Gemmell and Edward Buskey from UT-Austin and Dr. Jian Shengfrom Texas Tech have discovered new information that explains how tiny marine plankton overcome changes in the viscosity of ocean water.
Using 3-D high speed holographic techniques developed by the Sheng lab at Texas Tech, the interdisciplinary team has found that these minute crustaceans actually change the movement of their swimming appendages in order to optimize escape swimming performance across natural thermal extremes.
Read more about this research.
Researchers at Texas Tech and Yale University have discovered a way to predict and control the properties of metallic glasses, yielding a highly versatile material that looks like metal, is moldable like plastic, but stronger than steel.
Dr. Golden Kumar, assistant professor of mechanical engineering, has developed a model that can explain why some metallic glasses are always ductile or brittle, whereas others are sensitive to processing and aging.
Read more about this research.
Patrick C. Simek, a 1971 B.S.M.E. graduate and a 1977 School of Law graduate, is the recipient of The American Board of Trial Advocates' (ABOTA) highest honor, the Lifetime Achievement Award. Simek is a longtime ABOTA member and Lubbock, Texas, lawyer. He served as national president of ABOTA in 2002.
ME graduate students and faculty members' groundbreaking research on boron nitride is featured in the latest issue of PNAS. In the published work, the group reported successful transformation of soft boron nitride with high degree of disorder to wurtzitic boron nitride by way of plastic shear under high pressure, and provide mechanism for such transformation.
Texas Tech won second place in the Old Guard
Oral Presentation Contest
at the ASME 2012 International Mechanical Engineering Congress & Exposition.
The project was "Reinventing the Wheel: A Radially
Collapsing Wheel for an Innovative Wheelchair Design."
Texas Tech won first place in the Old Guard
Oral
Presentations at the regional District E competition of ASME’s Student Professional Development Conference (SPDC) and has qualified for a spot at
the International ASME Meeting this November. The winning student presenter was Pejmon Arbrapour.
Their project was "Reinventing the Wheel: A Radially
Collapsing Wheel for an Innovative Wheelchair Design." Kyle Ellis won second place for the poster competition for the same project.
Dr. Luciano Castillo is joining Texas Tech University as the Don-Kay-Clay Cash Foundation Distinguished Engineering Chair in Wind Energy, the executive director and president of the NWRC, and professor of mechanical engineering.
Dr. Jeff Hanson has been named the recipient of the 2011 American Society of Mechanical Engineers International Petroleum Technology Institute, Petroleum Division, Outstanding Faculty Advisor award.