News | Department of Mechanical Engineering

A Leap in Understanding Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy

Tuesday, July 27, 2021

A paper published June 15 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) and co-authored by Beth Pruitt, UC Santa Barbara professor of mechanical engineering and director of the UCSB Institute for BioEngineering, describes the results of a complex long-term collaboration that has included researchers at Stanford University, the University of Washington, and the University of Kentucky. The study has led to new understanding of how genetic mutations play out at the cellular level to cause HCM, and new perspectives on how to prevent it

Decade of Contributions

Thursday, June 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 Science of Tsunamis

Tuesday, June 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 massive flooding and rapid widespread devastation in coastal areas, as happened in Southeast Asia in 2004 and in Japan in 2011.

Sumita Pennathur Wins 2021 CoE Outstanding Faculty Award

Tuesday, June 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 contain.

This Unstoppable Robot Could Save Your Life

Monday, 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!

Graduate Student Jayden Plumb is awarded DOE Office of Science Graduate Student Research (SCGSR) Fellowship

Thursday, 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

Igor Mezić Receives J.D. Crawford Prize

Tuesday, 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”.

Giving Fluid Drag the Slip

Tuesday, April 27, 2021

In 2017, UC Santa Barbara mechanical engineer Paolo Luzzatto-Fegiz and 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 engineer Frederic Gibou, along with collaborators at the University of Manchester, have received a joint US-UK grant to extend their work to high-speed, turbulent flows.

Igor Mezić Earns Major SIAM Award for Development of Koopman Operator Theory

Monday, April 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.

Graduate Student Alexander Davydov is awarded the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship

Thursday, April 15, 2021

The Mechanical Engineering Department is excited to announce that 1st year graduate student Alexander Davydov has been awarded a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship!