News

  • Jul 27
    2021
    Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) is the most common of all genetic heart diseases and is the leading cause of sudden cardiac death. HCM is characterized by an abnormal thickening of the heart muscle, which, over time, can lead to cardiac dysfunction and, ultimately, heart failure.  A paper published June 15 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS)... read more »
  • Jun 24
    2021
    In recognition of her outstanding research accomplishments, Yangying Zhu, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering, has received the 2021 Pi Tau Sigma Gold Medal Award from the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME). The annual award, established in 1938, celebrates one individual’s outstanding contributions within his/her first ten years of earning a... read more »
  • Jun 8
    2021
    Graduating seniors in the Mechanical Engineering Department selected Professor Sumita Pennathur as their Outstanding Faculty of the Year Award winner. A pioneer in nanofluidics, interfacial science, and biological engineering, Pennathur’s work has revealed unique physics at the nanoscale, making it possible to model, predict, and control fluids and the molecules they... read more »
  • Jun 8
    2021
      When we hear the word “tsunami,” we think immediately of the widespread devastation that can result from these uniquely powerful waves. The tsunamis we hear about most often are caused by undersea earthquakes, and the waves they generate can travel at speeds of up to 250 miles per hour and reach heights of tens of meters when they make landfall and break, causing... read more »
  • May 17
    2021
    Recently, the Hawkes group was featured on the YouTube channel Veritasium with their a vine robot project and the video has over 7 million views so far!  Check it out:     
  • May 6
    2021
    The Mechanical Engineering Department is happy to announce that ME graduate student Jayden Plumb has been selected to receive one of 78 U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science Graduate Student Research (SCGSR) fellowships. He is co-advised by Stephen Wilson and Samantha Daly, and will be pursuing his research on the High Resolution Characterization of Strain... read more »
  • May 4
    2021
    Igor Mezić is the 2021 recipient of the J.D. Crawford Prize. The award will be presented virtually at the SIAM Conference on Application of Dynamical Systems (DS21), to be held in a virtual format May 23 – 27, 2021. The prize is awarded to Mezić for his paper, “Spectrum of the Koopman Operator, Spectral Expansions in Functional Spaces, and State-Space Geometry”.  The SIAM... read more »
  • Apr 27
    2021
    In 2017, UC Santa Barbara mechanical engineer Paolo Luzzatto-Fegizand colleagues published a paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences explaining that they had solved a mystery in fluid flow. Now, he has been awarded a prestigious CAREER Award from the National Science Foundation to develop a theory of the phenomenon. In addition, he and UCSB mechanical... read more »
  • Apr 26
    2021
    Igor Mezić, professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and the Department of Mathematics at UC Santa Barbara, has been named the recipient of the biennial Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM) Activity Group on Dynamical Systems (SIAG/DS) J. D. Crawford Prize, established in 2000.  The Crawford Prize recognizes contributions from a paper... read more »
  • Mar 22
    2021
    In work that has appeared in the Journal of Infectious Diseases, Paolo, Yangying and collaborators have shown that SARS-CoV-2 is inactivated by sunlight at a rate that is an order of magnitude faster than predicted by established theories.  This observation suggests that other, currently neglected inactivation mechanisms must be considered; a likely candidate includes... read more »
  • Feb 17
    2021
    Clockwise from top left: Professors Linda Petzold, Sumita Pennathur, Dennis Clegg, Megan Valentine Three professors from the UC Santa Barbara College of Engineering and one from the Department of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology (MCDB) have been named Fellows of the prestigious American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE... read more »
  • Feb 3
    2021
    We are delighted to announce that Professor Megan Valentine has agreed to serve as Co-Director of the California NanoSystems Institute (CNSI). Previously, Professor Valentine was Associate Director of CNSI at UC Santa Barbara. This move represents unprecedented growth for the Institute and an increased dedication to serving the needs of California. “We are fortunate to... read more »
  • Dec 29
    2020
    Mechanical Engineering assistant professor Yangying Zhu receives a National Science Foundation Early CAREER Award to pursue phase-change research. COVID-19 can be transmitted when an infected person talks, coughs, sneezes, or sings, expelling virus-containing respiratory droplets, which can reach the mouth, nose, or eyes of previously uninfected people. These... read more »
  • Dec 1
    2020
    Three projects with high-impact potential seeking to solve grand challenges of energy efficiency have been awarded seed funding from UC Santa Barbara’s Institute for Energy Efficiency (IEE). The IEE is an interdisciplinary research institute committed to improving energy efficiency across three key themes: smart societal infrastructure, computing and... read more »
  • Nov 20
    2020
    Enoch Yeung receives Young Investigator Award to study biological networks that lead to more robust and adaptive AI. Bacteria are extremely energy-efficient organisms that thrive in the harshest of environments. At a moment’s notice, they solve complex problems in order to survive, adapting to changes in conditions and their surroundings. What if a computing... read more »
  • Oct 27
    2020
    Emergency intubation in the field is a challenge for everyone involved, most especially the patient. Paramedics and EMTs have to contend with less than ideal circumstances while they attempt to insert a stiff laryngoscope down the throat and into the lungs of a nonresponsive patient. “And the success rate is only about 50%, which is far below what I would have expected,”... read more »
  • Sep 30
    2020
    Gravity affects everything on Earth at all times, from tiny particles binding and bubbles rising to how flames spread. But there are other forces at work as well – and one important way to study them is to eliminate gravity as a factor. That’s why NSF partners to send research projects into orbit with the Center for the Advancement of Science in Space, manager of the... read more »
  • May 30
    2020
    Tyler Susko has received the Outstanding Mechanical Engineering Faculty Award for the fourth time in the past five years. Since joining the Mechanical Engineering Department at UCSB in March 2016, Susko has overseen the department’s capstone program, which focuses on the development of students into professionals by pairing them with industry or academic experts to create... read more »
  • Apr 24
    2020
    by James Badham If you want to understand why coffee spills more frequently than beer (hint: it has to do with the physics of foam), ask Alban Sauret, assistant professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at UC Santa Barbara. He is also a good person to consult on more serious matters involving fluid dynamics and soft matter, for instance, if, as part of an... read more »
  • Apr 24
    2020
    By Andrew Masuda Almost all living cells and tissues exert and experience physical forces that influence their biological function. Understanding how those properties, such as stiffness, affect and control cells and tissues is the driving force behind mechanobiology, a burgeoning field that incorporates biology, engineering, and physics.  Mechanobiology seeks to determine... read more »
  • Apr 9
    2020
    The Department is excited to announce that our graduate student Charlie Xiao has been awarded a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship! Charlie’s work falls at the interface of thermodynamics and robotics. Specifically, his NSF GRFP fellowship will focus on harvesting energy from temperature fluctuations using vaporization for robotic applications. His... read more »