April, 2012 | College of Engineering

Five ME Student Teams Win Funds in Capstone Design Awards

Congratulations to the five ME capstone project teams that were awarded funds to move their projects from design to reality: Eco Car (student lead Trevor Fayer, adviser Brian Fabien), Helical Turbine-Tidal Micropower Generation System (student lead Ryan Knott, adviser Brian Polagye), UW Formula SAE (student lead Cheuk-Hung Ng, adviser Ashley Emery), Microgravity Team (student lead Cameron Turner, adviser James Riley), and Non-invasive Urinary Removal Device Project (student lead Tyler Wickstrom, adviser Randall Ching). For information about the Capstone Design Awards program, contact Pat Johnson.

May 3, 2012 | The Trend in Engineering

UW Engineering's Trend alumni newsletter quotes Associate Professor Jiangyu Li on the implications of discovering ferroelectricity in mammalian tissues. "We can imagine if we could manipulate the polarity of the artery wall..., then we might, for example, better understand the deposition of cholesterol which leads to the thickening and hardening of the artery wall."
Read also: BBC Future's Body Shock: The electricity inside your body, UW Today and Physical Review Letters

April 26, 2012 | UW Today

Cells in Blood Vessel Found to Cling More Tightly in Regions of Rapid Flow

"Our results indicate that these cells can sense the kind of flow that they're in, and structurally change how they hold themselves together," says Assistant Professor Nathan Sniadecki. The finding could influence how doctors design drugs to treat high cholesterol, or how cardiac surgeons plan their procedures. Sniadecki is lead author on the paper now available online in the American Journal of Physiology - Heart and Circulatory Physiology.

April 26, 2012 | UW Today

BBC Future Writes up Ferroelectricity Finding

Associate Professor Jiangyu Li and doctoral candidate Yuanming Liu are collaborators on the surprising discovery of ferroelectricity in mammalian tissue. The BBC Future story lays out the possibly major implications to the future of health care. Read also: UW Today and Physical Review Letters

March 13, 2012 | University of Washington

Ramulu Mamidala to Receive Distinguished Contributions to Lifelong Learning Award

We congratulate Professor Mamidala on his selection for the prestigious award. The UW has recognized him for motivating working engineers to pursue (and complete) PhDs, developing collaborative graduate programs with local industry, and taking the lead in using emerging technologies. The department and his students have benefitted tremendously by Prof. Ramulu's dedication to teaching. He will officially receive the award during a UW ceremony on June 7, 2012.

February 9, 2012 | The New York Times

Trevor Fayer on the Value of EcoCAR2 Experience, Plans for Car

ME grad student Trevor Fayer speaks about the invaluable experience he has gained as co-leader of the UW EcoCAR2 team and describes how the team will design a hybrid car with two drivetrain systems: a diesel engine to drive the front axle and an electric motor mounted at the rear. "You can use these two in parallel together, or one at a time, for fuel economy," Fayer is quoted.

February 9, 2012 | GeekWire

High-resolution Scanning Fiber Endoscope: Article and Video

ME research scientist Richard Johnston's scanning fiber endoscope, a 1.2 millimeter device that uses lasers and an optical fiber to create a detailed image inside the esophagus and even in the narrow bile duct, was one of the new technologies featured at the open house for the UW's new startup incubator space in Fluke Hall. Watch the video of Johnston demonstrating the technology.

January 30, 2012 | UW Today

Ferroelectric Switching Discovered for First Time in Soft Biological Tissue

Associate Professor Jiangyu Li is the lead author on an upcoming article in the journal Physical Review Letters. The article announces the discovery of ferroelectricity in a mammalian aorta. While much more research needs to be done, Li says, "We can imagine if we could manipulate the polarity of the artery wall... then we might, for example, better understand the deposition of cholesterol which leads to the thickening and hardening of the artery wall."

January 24, 2012

EcoCAR2 Team Featured in Biodiesel Magazine

The UW EcoCAR2 team is covered in an article in Biodiesel Magazine, with a good description of the design, development and presentation tasks that lie ahead. Team co-leader Tyler Crain was quoted saying, "We have to bring the car pretty much up to the level of a consumer vehicle. At the end of the competition, we take it to a proving grounds track owned by GM."

December 26, 2011

Solheim RP Lab Helping Make Rapid Prototyping Affordable

Blending sugar and maltodextrin with ceramic powder, the Solheim Rapid Prototyping lab is helping bring the cost of 3-D printing to within reach for small business and home use. The lab has experimented with a variety of less expensive printing materials, including mango iced-tea mix. The Solheim lab is directed by Professors Mark Ganter and Duane Storti.
Seattle Times video and article | Economist article

November 27, 2011

ME-based UW EcoCAR Team Designing Super-hybrid

The UW EcoCAR2 team is working to design a hybrid car that goes 45 to 50 miles on an electric charge, then switches to biodiesel and gets 100 miles to the gallon. The work is for credit and for a three-year national competition to turn a Chevy Malibu into a super-hybrid. Recently the team received $25,000 in seed money from GM, which was matched by the Mechanical Engineering department.
Seattle Times article »
UW EcoCAR2 Team's blog »

October 2011

Ashley Emery: A Half-Century at the UW and Going Strong

Prof. Ashley Emery shares what's changed and what hasn't in ME. Not about to change: his regular bike commute and plans to keep teaching. According to ME Chair Per Reinhall, Emery was "one of the early key faculty members who put the department on the national and international research map. After 50 years on the faculty (Emery) is not slowing down. He is currently the faculty adviser of our highly successful Formula SAE racecar project and a key member of the FAA Joint Advanced Materials and Structures Center of Excellence. Ashley is also an active cyclist and continues to impress everybody by completing the annual Seattle to Portland bike race in one day." More »

September 2011

Laser Scanning Endoscope Gets Press

ME research scientist Richard S. Johnston co-authored an article on new laser scanning endoscope research in collaboration with Harvard University. The article appears in Optics Letters and the September issue of Laser Focus World (not yet online).

August 2011

Boeing 787's Certification Puts Spotlight on AMTAS Lab

Senator Maria Cantwell (D-WA) held a press conference on the UW campus last week to recognize a federally funded research center that helped Boeing develop the first commercial airplane made largely from composite materials, or carbon fiber.

ME's Advanced Materials in Transport Aircraft Structures (or AMTAS) is funded through federal and private-sector sources. The lab helped in certifications of the compression-molding technique that Boeing used to manufacture many of the large composite parts used in the Dreamliner. Article and slideshow »

July 2011

Final Lab Project: Testing Their Designs at NASA's "Microgravity University"

For their final lab project, ME seniors Sean Stoker and Scott Tandoi tested a refueling system and built a gauge to measure how much fuel is left in the tank. They got to tested it on NASA's "vomit comet."

The students built their system over six months in the basement of the mechanical engineering building. "We built everything at least twice — everything," Sorenson said.

Team member Scott Tandoi, a senior in mechanical engineering, designed a new tank on a 3-D computer drafting program. The Boeing Co. then built the tank in its 3-D fabrication facility, which the team also got to tour. More »

July 2011

ME's Ellen Barker Wins a ProStaff Award

Ellen Barker, the sole staff member of ME's FAA Center of Excellence for Composites, has been named a recipient of the ProStaff Award given by the UW Professional Staff Association. Barker was nominated for the award by Mark Tuttle, who wrote, "She brings a wealth of skills and ideas that enhance her effectiveness in this position, one that requires many disparate talents — grant/budget management, event planning, web development, report preparation, and something extra — graphic design." Congratulations, Ellen! More »

July 2011

Robert Krause's Engineer's Precision Means Longevity

Former ME faculty member Robert Krause has lived with type 1 diabetes for 85 years making him the first American known to live 85 years with the disease. His doctors and son credit his longevity to his meticulous record keeping and attention to detail. Krause calls himself a stubborn old man who refuses to give up. Krause retired from ME as an associate professor in 1964. More »

June 1, 2011 | UW Today

Günther Laukien Prize awarded to John Sidles

John Sidles, with two IBM associates, has won the 2011 Günther Laukien Prize for their conception, implementation, and application of Magnetic Resonance Force Microscopy (MRFM).

The Günther Laukien Prize recognizes recent cutting-edge, experimental Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) research with a high probability of enabling beneficial new applications. It is awarded annually at the Experimental NMR Conference (ENC). The NMR community has accepted the prize as one of the leading distinctions in the field.

In the photo above is the overhead projection of John Sidles, upper-left, from the award ceremony.

May 2011

Nate Sniadecki Wins DARPA Young Faculty Award

Assistant Prof. Nate Sniadecki has been awarded a Young Faculty Award from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the research agency of the U.S. Department of Defense. Dr. Sniadecki's award is in the area of New Physical Methods for Biological Characterization and Control, for his research project, "A BioMEMS Platform for Coagulation Testing." The goal of his project is to engineer a biomedical device that can rapidly diagnose blood clotting disorders due to trauma.

The DARPA Young Faculty Awards identify and engage rising research stars in junior faculty positions at U.S. academic institutions and expose them to Department of Defense needs and DARPA's program development process.

May 18, 2011 | Medgadget

Digital Imaging Software Creates a 'Google Earth' View of the Bladder

Eric Seibel, research associate professor of ME, co-authored a proposition for a bladder scan system that cuts costs and improves comfort and convenience in bladder cancer detection. The system would use the UW's ultrathin laser endoscope with software that stitches together images to create a 3-D panorama of the bladder interior.

May 16, 2011 | Sustainable Industries

Heart of Glass: EnVitrum Cooks up Bricks out of Waste

Renuka Prabhakar and Grant Marchelli are researching the development of bricks made out of recycled glass with the hopes that the bricks will be stronger, lighter and better insulators than conventional building blocks.