UCSB Mechanical Engineering Thesis Research Areas
- Bioengineering and Systems Biology
- Computational Science and Engineering
- Dynamic Systems, Control, and Robotics
- Micro and Nano Technology
- Solid Mechanics, Materials, and Structures
- Thermal Sciences and Fluid Mechanics
Affiliated UCSB Research Centers
- Center for Control, Dynamical Systems and Computation
- Materials Research Laboratory
- Center for Risk Studies and Safety
- Institute for Theoretical Physics
- California Nanosystems Institute
- Technology Management Program
- Center for Stem Cell Biology and Engineering
Resources
- Find a Faculty Expert in Engineering and the Sciences
- Available Technologies for Licensing at UC Santa Barbara
- College of Engineering Institutes and Centers
- UCSB Office of Research
Thesis Work
Best PhD Thesis Award
- 2023: Nicholas Naclerio, (advisor: Elliot Hawkes), Leveraging compliance and anisotropy to address robotic challenges
- 2022: Daniil Bochkov, (advisors: Frederic Gibou), Computational methods for solidification of multicomponent materials and moving boundary problems in physics of inhomogeneous polymers
- 2021: Fernando Temprano-Coleto (advisor: Frederic Gibou & Paolo Luzzatto-Fegiz), Slip in the Presence of Surfactants: Applications to Superhydrophobic Drag Reduction
- 2020: Raphael Ouillon (advisor: Eckart Meiburg), Direct Numerical Simulations of Multiphase, Stratified, Environmental Fluid Flows
- 2019: Alexander Eden (advisor: Carl Meinhart), Investigating Electrokinetic and Electrochemical Phenomena in Confined Geometries through Multiphyscial Modeling
- 2018: Hassan Arbabi (advisor: Igor Mezic), Koopman Spectral Analysis and Study of Mixing in Incompressible Flows
- 2017: Jackson Travis Del Bonis-O'Donnell, (advisor: Sumita Pennathur), DNA-Stabilized Fluorescent Silver Nanoclusters: A Versatile Nanomaterial for the Specific Detection of DNA
- 2016: Dan Wilson, (advisor: Jeff Moehlis), Model Reduction for Treatment of Neurological Diseases and Cardiac Arrhythmias
- 2015: Florian Doefler, (advisor: Francesco Bullo), Dynamics and Control in Power Grids and Complex Oscillator Network
- 2014: Seyed Mohammad Mirzadeh, (advisor: Frederic Gibou), Discretization of Poisson-Boltzmann and Poisson-Nernst-Planck Equations with Applications to Electrochemical Systems
- 2012: Fabio Pasqualetti, (advisor: Francesco Bullo), Secure Control Systems: A Control-Theoretic Approach to Cyber-Physical Security
- 2011: Brian Ferguson, (advisor: Tom Soh), Development of Novel Integrated Microfluidic Electrochemical Point-of-Care Sensors for Pathogen Detection and Continuous Drug Monitoring
- 2010: Per Danzl, (advisor: Jeff Moehlis), Dynamical Characterization and Feedback Control of Oscillatory Neural Systems
- 2009: Brian Piorek, (advisor: Carl Meinhart), Transport Properties in Free Surface Fluidics
- 2008: Brian Munsky, (advisor: Mustafa Khammash), The Finite State Projection for the Solution of the Master Equation and its Applications to Stochastic Gene Regulatory Networks
- 2007: Vineet Birman, (advisor: Eckart Meiburg), Topics in Gravity and Turbidity Current Research
- 2006: Emily Parker, (advisor: Noel McDonald), Bulk Micromachined Titanium Microneedles for Minimally Invasive Drug Delivery
- 2005: Hana El-Samad, (advisor: Mustafa Khammash), Mechanisms of noise exploitation in gene regulatory networks: Biological design principles for robustness, performance, and selective interactions with noise
Featured Thesis Titles
Faculty Advisor: Bassam Bamieh
- PhD, The Analysis of Distributed Spatially Periodic Systems
- PhD, Distributed Control of Systems of Lattices
- PhD, Investigations with Optical Tweezers: Construction, Identification, and Control
Faculty Advisor: Matthew Begley
- MS, Peeling of a Tape Adhered to a Substrate by Uniform Cohesive Traction
Faculty Advisor: Glenn Beltz
- MS, Cracking in thin films with stress graidnets grown on substrates
- MS, PhD, Multi-Scale Multi-Plane Model for Stacking Fault abd Twinning Formation in BCC Iron
- MS, Strain Fields in Self-Assembled Quantum-Dot Lattices: A Finite-Element Study
- MS, PhD, The Mechanics of Crack Blunting at the Atomic Scale
Faculty Advisor: Ted Bennett
- MS, Thermally Induced Refractive Index Change in Fused Silicon due to CO2 Laser Processing
- MS, Coating Thermal Diffusivity and Effusivity Measurement Optimization Using a Regression-Based Sensitivity Approach
- PhD, Laser Surface Modification of Silicate Glass
- PhD, The Nondestructive Evaluation of Thermal Barrier Coatings: Measurements of Thermal Properties and Associated Defects
- PhD, Thermophysical and Optical Investigations of CO2 Laser Beam Interaction with Silica Glass and PMMA
Faculty Advisor: Francesco Bullo
- PhD, Distributed Decsion Making
- PhD, Secure Control Systems: A Control-Theoretic Approach to Cyber-Physical Security
- PhD, Stochastic Search and Surveillance Strategies for Mixed Human-Robot Teams
- PhD, Opinion Dynamics with Bounded Confidence and Exogenous Inputs
- PhD, Dynamics and Control in Power Grids and Complex Oscillator Networks
Faculty Advisor: Frederic Gibou
- PhD, Simulation Tools for Three Dimenstional Fluid Flow with Electrostatic Forcing Term on Arbitrary Geometry Using Octree Grids
- PhD, A Level Set Approach for Epitaxial Growth of Quantum Dots with a Step Edge Barrier
- PhD, Sharp Numerical Methods for Interfacial Physics
- PhD, Discretization of Poisson-Boltzman and Poisson-Nernst-Planck Equations with Applications to Electrochemical Systems
Faculty Advisor: Patricia Holden
- MS, A Novel Method of Imaging Flow Tracers for an Air-Water Interface
- MS, Effects of Hexavalent uranium and nanoparticulate TIO2 on pseudomonas Putida
- MS, Ruthenium Red Based Staining Enhancement of Pseudomonas Aeruginesa Biofilms Examined with Environmental Scanning Electron Microscopy
Faculty Advisor: Keith Kedward (Emeritus)
- PhD, A New Composite Structure Impact Performance Assessment Program
- PhD, Characterization of the Properties of a Stitched Hybrid Composite Laminate
- PhD, Crack Propagation and Arrest in CFRP Materials with Strain Softening Regions
- PhD, Nonlinear Modeling of Tubular Adhesive Scarf Joints Loaded in Tension
- PhD, Stress Analysis and Failure Prediction for Adhesively Bonded Joints
Faculty Advisor: Paolo Luzzatto-Fegiz
- PhD, Energy Fluxes in Natural and Artificial Arrays of Obstacles
Faculty Advisor: Noel MacDonald (Emeritus)
- PhD, Active Suppression of Panel Flutter Using Feedback Control
- PhD, Bulk Micromachined Titanium Microneedles for Minamally Invasive Drug Delivery
- PhD, Bulk Titanium for MEMS Switches
- PhD, Design, Fabrication, and Characterization of Beam- Supported Aluminum Nitride Thin Film Bulk Acoustic Resonators
Faculty Advisor: Eric Matthys
- MS, Characterization of Mechanical Degradation effects on the drag-reducing behavior of polymer solutions
- MS, The Applicability of Marine Algal Biopolymers as Drag-Reducing Activities
- MS, High Temperature Effecgts on Algae Production for Biofuel: Numerical Simulation and Growth Experiments
Faculty Advisor: Robert McMeeking
- PhD, Computational Models for the Bio-Chemo-Mechanical Behavior of Cells in Diverse Extra-Cellular Settings
- PhD, Designing Pydramidal Lattice Structures for Energy Absorption
- PhD, Modeling and Finite Element Simulation of Dielectric Elastomer Materials and Actuators
Faculty Advisor: Eckart Meiburg
- PhD, Gravity Current - Submarine Structure Interaction: Hazard Analysis via High-Resolution Simulations
- PhD, Three-Dimensional Navier-Stokes Simulations of Miscible Displacements in Hele-Shaw Cells
- PhD, On Two-Layer Analytical Models for Gravity Currents and Internal Bores
- PhD, Double-Diffusive Instabilities in Sediment-Laden Flows
- PhD, Understanding Turbidity Currents Interacting with Complex Seafloor Topographies: A Depth-Resolved Numerical Investigation
Faculty Advisor: Carl Meinhart
- PhD, Nonlinear Phenomena in Induced Charge Electroosmosis
- PhD, Transport Properties in Free Surface Fluidics
- PhD, Electrothermal and Buoyancy Driven Microstirring to Enhance Scalar Transport
- PhD, Transport Processes at the Air/Liquid Interface in Microfluidic Systems
Faculty Advisor: Igor Mezic
- PhD, Globally Optimal Trajectories for Underpowered Vehicles in Strong, Time-Varying Flow Fields
- PhD, Encoding Information in Coarse Grain Models for Self-Assembling Systems
- PhD,Targeted Escape in Large Oscillator Networks
- PhD, Spectral Properties of the Koopman OPerator in the Analysis of Nonstationary Dynamical Systems
- PhD, Analysis of Systems in Buildings using Spectral Koopman Operator Methods
Faculty Advisor: Jeff Moehlis
- PhD, Characterizing the Edge of Chaos for Shear Flows
- PhD, Dynamical Characterization and Feedback Control of Oscillatory Neural Systems
- PhD, Group Decision-Making Models for Cybernetic Systems
- PhD, Event-based Optimal Control of Neurons
- PhD, Information Propagation on Social Networks
Faculty Advisor: Robert Odette (Emeritus)
- MS, Determining Processing Variable Effects on Nano-Particle Distribution in Nanostructured Ferritic Alloys
- PhD, Size Effects on Fracture Toughness for Cleavage Initiation in the Ductile to Brittle Transition
- PhD, Study of the Structure, Composition, and Stability of Y-Ti-O nm-Scale Features in Nano-Structured Ferritic Alloys
Faculty Advisor: Brad Paden
- MS, Chaos Experiment - Simulation of the Bouncing Ball Apparatus
- MS, A Maglev Apparatus for Power Minimization and Control of Artificial Hearts
- MS, Neural Oscillator Identification via Phase-Locking Behavior
- PhD, Tracking of Periodic Trajectories in Nonlinear Plants
Faculty Advisor: Sumita Pennathur
- MS, Field-Amplified Sample Stacking and Focusing in Nanofluidic Channels
- MS, Nanofluidic Energy Conversion using PNC-SI Membranes
- MS, Micro and Nanofluidic Investigation Revealing: Kinetic, Confinement, and EDL Effects of 10 to 50 Base Pair ssDNA and dsDNA
- PhD, Transport of Nanoparticles and Reacting Biomolecules in Micro- and Nanofluidic Electrokinetic Systems
Faculty Advisor: Linda Petzold
- PhD, Control of Mixing in Fluid Flows and Applications to Microfluidic Mixing
- PhD, Mutliscale Modeling and Simulation Methods: Accelerated Kinetic Monte Carlo Methods and Adaptive Stabilized Explicit Integrator
- PhD, Multiscale Modeling and Simulation of Copper Electrodeposition
- PhD, Identifying Learing and Performance in a Visuomotor Task
- PhD, Numerical Scaling Studies of Kinetically-Limited Electrochemical Nucleation and Growth and the Exact-Lattice-First-Passage-Time Algorithm
Faculty Advisor: Kimberly Foster
- PhD, Exploiting Parametic Resonance and Amplification in Microcantilever-based Mass Sensing
- PhD, Linear and Nonlinear Sensing Techniques in a SISO MEMS Oscillator
- PhD, Noise in Nonlinear MEMS as it Applies to Sensing
- PhD, Microfabrication of Bio-Inspired Adhesive Systems
- PhD, Design and Characterization of Fibrillar Adhesives
Faculty Advisor: Megan Valentine
- MS, Design of a High Force NdFeB Based Magnetic Tweezers Device Using Iterative Finite Element Analysis with Emphasis on Portability
- MS, Understanding the Role of Stoichiometry in the Mechanics of Self-Healing Behavior of Thiol-ene Polymer Networks
Faculty Advisor: Henry Yang
- PhD, A Finite Element Approach to Predicting Deformation Field Parameters in Plane Strain Machining
- PhD, Monitoring and Restabilizing Structures under External Excitations through Detection and Prediction of Changes in Structural Properties
- PhD, Active Control of Frame Structures: A Decentralized Approach