Alex Chortos

At the ASME Manufacturing Science and Engineering Conference (MSEC) in Knoxville, Tennessee, I presented an invited talk on the use of 3D printing for making bio-inspired soft electronics like 3D artificial muscles.

At TechConnect in Washington DC, my company PolyC Plastics and Composites received an award for the "Top 15% most innovative companies." Miko Cakmak and I, and a Purdue PhD student (Michael Sotzing), are scientific advisors for PolyC, and displayed product concepts and discussed with investors at the booth. TechConnect is America's premier conference for entrepreneurship and startup investment.

This summer, I joined with Monique McClain and Heather Liddell to run a summer course for high school students that teaches product design and entrepreneurship using 3D printing. 43 students designed a product, printed it, and pitched their product ideas to a panel of judges. As the top design, the judges chose a modular storage solution for wheelchairs, while students chose a project on custom cleats.

Andrea Vacca

One of my Ph.D. students (now graduated) Xin Tian became a finalist for the 2024 Giuseppe Pellizzi Prize, representing the best international Ph.D. thesis on agricultural mechanization. Her thesis was "Methods to reduce energy consumption in the hydraulic system: toward the next generation of green, high-efficient agricultural tractors."

Dave Cappelleri

David Cappelleri and Aaron Davis at the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) in Yokohama, Japan

We had a few trips this summer:

• IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), Yokohama, Japan
• NSF ERC IoT4Ag Annual Retreat, Merced, CA
• IEEE International Conference on Manipulation, Automation, and Robotics at Small Scales (MARSS), Delft, Netherlands (Fun fact:  I will be organizing this conference next year at Purdue!)

I also received the official Guinness World Record for 3D printing the world's smallest drum!

David Warsinger

My team won three awards in the 2024 Marine Energy Collegiate Competition (MECC) in Portland, Oregon, sponsored by the US Department of Energy's Office of Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy (EERE). They received Best Poster, Best Community Connections, and 2nd place in the overall competition.

I also received the Bergles-Rohsenow Young Investigator Award in Heat Transfer at the ASME Summer Heat Transfer Conference in Anaheim, California.

Davide Ziviani

My summer was very busy, thanks to the ASHRAE Annual Conference which took place in Indianapolis. My highlight of ASHRAE was receiving the Distinguished Service Award, which recognizes ASHRAE members who have served the Society faithfully and with distinction on committees or otherwise given freely of their time and talent on behalf of the Society.

The Herrick Conferences took place here at Purdue just two weeks later, for which I served as chair of the International Refrigeration and Air Conditioning Conference. My students won several awards:

• Steven Liang, current PhD candidate at Herrick Labs co-advised by Jim Braun and myself, received the Best Paper Award in the International Compressor Engineering Conferences. He prototyped a novel reciprocating compressor with vapor injection that will enable next generation high-efficiency domestic refrigerators. He also received the Dave Tree Distinguished Service Award for his work in managing all the conferences’ papers, presentations, program and activities " the first time this award has been given to a student.
• Jan Spale is a PhD student from Czech Technical University in Prague and was a Fulbright Scholar at Herrick Labs for approximately 1 year under my supervision. He received the 2nd place in the Student Paper Competition, writing about high temperature heat pumps.

Eric Holloway

I was part of various teams that presented six papers at the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) Annual Conference in Portland, Oregon from June 23-26. Two of the papers that had the most significance for Mechanical Engineering were:

• A Framework for Students’ Professional Development When Meeting with Employers in a Microelectronics Workforce Development Program, co-authored by ME undergraduate Benjamin Burson (who I mentored for three semesters) and myself, focused on helping students in the Purdue-led SCALE microelectronic consortium prepare to meet with employers.
• Validity Evidence for the Sophomore Engineering Experiences Survey, co-authored by ME faculty Beth Holloway, myself, and our graduate student Fanyi Zhang, received Honorable Mention for the Best Paper in the Education Research and Methods (ERM) Division of ASEE. The ERM Division is generally considered the most stringent and has the most papers submitted for review.

Guillermo Paniagua

Aubrey McKelvy

A good summer update from the team here at Purdue Experimental Turbine Aerothermal Laboratory (PETAL). Aubrey McKelvy and coauthors were awarded the Best Paper Award in “Controls, Diagnostics & Instrumentation” at the ASME Turbo Expo, which took place in London.

McKelvy A., Braun J., Paniagua G., Andre T., Choquet E., Falempin F., 2023, “Quantitative Definition of Spray Edge With Extinction Diagnostics for Liquid Jets in Supersonic Cross-flow”. Proceedings of the ASME Turbo Expo 2023. Paper GT2023-102536. Boston, USA. June. https://doi.org/10.1115/GT2023-102536

Junfei Li

I have several undergraduate students who won awards at NOISE-CON 2024 in New Orleans, the annual conference of the Institute of Noise Control Engineering (INCE-USA).

• Ruxin Li (incoming graduate student in my group, starting Fall 2024): Leo Beranek Student Medal for Excellence in Noise Control
• Shaocheng Wu (ME, Junior): Hallberg Foundation Award and Undergraduate Research Project Award
• Yijie Zhang (AE, Senior): Hallberg Foundation Award and Undergraduate Research Project Award

Partha Mukherjee

Here are my students and postdoc (Energy and Transport Sciences Laboratory) from our visit to the Electrochemical Society (ECS) Meeting in San Francisco. Left to right: Navneet Goswami (recent group alum, now at Los Alamos National Lab), Julia Meyer, Anu Alujagge, Partha Mukherjee, Pretty Mitra, Avijeet Karmakar.

Steve Son

In June, I attended the Gordon Research Conference in Maine, focused on Understanding and Exploiting Structure, Property, and Novel Synthesis for Next Generation Energetic Materials. Our group had several posters presented and Diane Collard and Monique McClain were invited speakers.

Current and former Purdue students, staff, and faculty who attended the Gordon Research Conference in Maine.

Also in June, I attended the Workshop on Pyrotechnic Combustion where I gave an invited presentation, and the International Annual Conference of the Fraunhofer ICT, both in Karlsruhe, Germany.

In July I attended the International Pyrotechnic Society meeting in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Ph.D. student Bekah Travis gave a presentation and we had several posters.

In July I was an invited speaker at the 14th International Workshop on Combustion and Propulsion in Pescara, Italy.

Oh, and did I mention I got to visit an aircraft carrier?

Timothee Pourpoint and Steve Son prepare to board the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier.

Stuart Bolton

My PhD student Guochenhao Song was a winner of the Institute of Noise Control Engineers Student Paper competition at the conference NoiseCon 2024 which was held in New Orleans. His paper was entitled: Modeling a low-frequency sound absorber consisting of a granular activated carbon stack backed by a poro-elastic layer. Song started work on his PhD in January 2021, and this will be his final conference presentation, since he graduated in August!

Thomas Siegmund

We taught a fun course at Purdue's Grandparents University! Together with several students (Tanner Ballance, Liz Montagnino, Chizaram Ugboh, Will Bush) we taught a course called “No Bones About It." Middle school students together with their grandparents learned about bone biomechanics, what it takes to be a scientist, and general principles of biomechanics.

Xiulin Ruan

Two of my students won awards at the ASME Summer Heat Transfer Conference in Anaheim, California. Gilbreth Postdoctoral Fellow Dr. Xiaojie Liu received a K9 Session Presentation Award for her talk entitled “Low-emissivity colored paints enabled by conductive polymer coating for year-round energy-efficient buildings.” PhD student Andrea Felicelli received a K9 Session Presentation Award for her talk entitled “Structural Radiative Cooling in Highly Reflective White Snail Shells as Adaptation to Extreme Heat Environments.”

Xiaojie Liu and Andrea Felicelli

I also received the ASME McDonald Mentoring Award, recognizing the outstanding mentoring of other professionals by an engineer in industry, government, education or private practice.