News & Events

07-17-14

Mechanical and civil engineering graduate student Ryan Hurley who works with Professor José Andrade has won the BSSM (British Society for Strain Measurement) Young Stress Analyst Competition at the 16th International Conference on Experimental Mechanics (ICEM.16). The competition is an annual competition that is intended to encourage and reward young practitioners in the field of experimental mechanics. Ryan was among six finalists representing universities in Belgium, Poland, France, and the USA, who were selected from 34 applications by a panel of experts. The finalists presented their work during the ICEM.16 conference and were judged by a panel of leading researchers. [YSA Competition Information]

Tags: honors MCE Jose Andrade Ryan Hurley

07-14-14

Guruswami (Ravi) Ravichandran, John E. Goode, Jr. Professor of Aerospace and Professor of Mechanical Engineering, as well as Director of GALCIT and former members of his group have received a Journal Strain Best Paper Prize.  The paper is titled Three-dimensional Displacement and Shape Measurement with a Diffraction-assisted Grid Method. The award winning team consisted of a high school student intern, a visiting undergraduate student researcher, a graduate student, a postdoctoral scholar, and a faculty member.

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Tags: honors GALCIT MCE Guruswami Ravichandran Jacob Notbohm Alexandros Rosakis Satoshi Kumagai Shuman Xia

06-20-14

The Thomson Reuters compilation of the most highly cited researchers— those in the top 1%—from the period 2002–2012 include EAS professors Harry Atwater, Richard Murray, Joel Tropp, John Seinfeld, Kerry Vahala, and Paul Wennberg. Other Caltech professors were also among the top 1%—including Colin Camerer, Mark Davis, Richard Ellis, William Goddard, Robert Grubbs, Hiroo Kanamori, Jeff Kimble, John O’Doherty, and Charles Steidel. This compilation aims to identify researchers with exceptional impact on their respective fields.  [Detailed information on the methodology]

Tags: APhMS honors MCE Harry Atwater CMS ESE Paul Wennberg John Seinfeld Joel Tropp Kerry Vahala Richard Murray

06-05-14

Guruswami (Ravi) Ravichandran, John E. Goode, Jr. Professor of Aerospace and Professor of Mechanical Engineering, and Director of GALCIT, has been awarded the Society of Experimental Mechanics (SEM) William M. Murray Lecture and Medal. He delivered the 2014 Murray Lecture entitled, Three-Dimensional Quantitative Visualization: Application to Studying Cell-Matrix Interactions, on June 3, 2014 during the SEM Annual Conference and Exposition on Experimental and Applied Mechanics. The award was made in recognition of his pioneering contributions in experimental mechanics of deformation, damage and failure of materials under multiaxial dynamic loading. The Murray Lecture is the highest distinction awarded by SEM and is the prestige lecture of its annual conference.  The Murray Lecture was established in 1952 in honor of the first President of SEM, William MacGregor Murray who was a Professor and Executive Officer of Mechanical Engineering at MIT.

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Tags: honors research highlights GALCIT MCE Guruswami Ravichandran Ares Rosakis Wolfgang Knauss

04-28-14

John F. Brady, Chevron Professor of Chemical Engineering and Mechanical Engineering, has been elected to the 2014 American Academy of Arts and Sciences class of fellows. Professor Brady’s research focuses on the area of complex fluids and active matter which includes microstructural elements such as suspensions, colloidal dispersions, and self-propelling particles. Understanding these materials led him to develop a novel computational method called Stokesian dynamics. He has won the 2012 Fluid Dynamics Prize from the American Physical Society and was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 1999. [Caltech Release]

Tags: honors MCE AAAS John Brady

04-25-14

Students in Professor Hillary Mushkin’s new media arts seminar (E/H/Art 89 New Media Arts in the 20th and 21st Centuries) have put on a unique exhibition highlighting art and engineering. The course provides a platform for an expanded understanding of engineering and an active, project-based engagement with art history. [List of all projects]

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Tags: EE research highlights MCE CMS Hillary Mushkin

04-21-14

José E. Andrade, Professor of Civil and Mechanical Engineering, and his research on earthquake-induced liquefaction and granular materials was featured on You're the Expert, a new live show and public radio program. The show uses comedy to make academic research more accessible and exciting. During the live taping at Caltech three comedians tried to guess what Professor Andrade studies. Then they interviewed him about his work, why it's important, and what's new and exciting in his field. [Audio podcast - Granular Materials]

Tags: research highlights MCE Jose Andrade

04-04-14

The renovation of the Franklin Thomas Laboratory of Engineering began with a wall breaking ceremony on April 4, 2014. The donors who made this renovation possible are: the Gate Frontiers Fund and Diane Gates Wallach who made the gift in honor of her father, Charles C. Gates Jr. a former life-trustee of Caltech; alumnus Jim Hall (BS ’57) and his wife Sandy; and the Fred L. Hartley Family Foundation.

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Tags: GALCIT MCE Ares Rosakis Caltech infrastructure Kaushik Bhattacharya Diane Wallach Jim Hall Edward Stolper

03-12-14

The students in this year's Mechanical Engineering 72 (ME72) class, a two-term engineering design lab for mechanical engineering majors, not only rolled, they crawled and flew their robotic inventions to deliver their team's soup can to the top of a wooden pyramid outfitted with steel ramps, while simultaneously deploying other robotic vehicles to conduct defensive maneuvers, preventing the opposing team from beating them to the top with their own color-coded soup can. [Caltech Release]

Tags: MCE ME 72

03-06-14

Mary Baker (PhD ’72 in Applied Mechanics) and Richard Miller (PhD ’76 in Applied Mechanics) have been recognized by Caltech with the Distinguished Alumni Award, the highest honor regularly bestowed by the Institute. Dr. Baker, who is President of ATA Engineering Inc., was recognized for pioneering entrepreneurship and leadership in aerospace. Dr. Miller, who is President of Olin College of Engineering, was recognized for visionary leadership and commitment to innovation in engineering education for the benefit of society. [Caltech Release]

Tags: honors MCE alumni Mary Baker Richard Miller