Aerospace Engineering
The McCormick Lecture
Thursday, April 17, 2025;
3:00 - 4:00 PM
ECoRE 028
Speaker: David Lockard from NASA Langley Research Center
Speaker Bio: Dr. David Lockard joined NASA Langley Research Center (LaRC) in 1997 after completing a Ph.D. in Aerospace Engineering at Penn State University. He began his career during the nascent days of computational aeroacoustics, developing and evaluating computational fluid dynamic methods for acoustic applications. His technical contributions extend from basic research on airframe-noise (AFN) generation and simulation-based predictive tools to concepts for AFN reduction. He has participated in multiple wind-tunnel and flight experiments that have evaluated noise reduction concepts and provided valuable data sets for validating numerical simulations.
Since 2011, Dr. Lockard has been the lead of the maintenance and operations team of K Cluster, the LaRC high-performance computing resource, and for the last two years he has served as the head of the Computational AeroSciences Branch within the LaRC Research Directorate. The branch develops and applies three well-known codes: FUN3D, OVERFLOW, and LASTRAC.
Statements that Influenced a Career
Take a tour of a career and see how comments from parents, professors, mentors, and colleagues helped to shape it. The talk includes highlights from a joint computational and experimental campaign to understand and mitigate slat noise that culminated in a large-scale wind tunnel test. Recent accomplishments in the Computational AeroSciences Branch will also be discussed.
Hosted by: Jessica Chhan, jmc7050@psu.edu
Center for Neural Engineering
CNE/CDNE Informational Session
Wednesday, April 16, 2025;
12:00 - 1:15 pm
W306 Millennium Science Complex
Speaker: from
CNE brings together researchers from the COE, COM, MRI, and ECOS. We create an environment that fosters collaboration, where faculty and students can achieve cutting-edge projects that are not possible individually.
In addition, the Cross-Disciplinary Neural Engineering Training Program, offered only through CNE, is designed for graduate students who want to work at the intersection of engineering, science, mathematics, and brain health. Trainees will develop the skills to communicate and collaborate across disciplines and gain the tools necessary to produce groundbreaking advancements in neuroscience and human brain health.
Discover how CNE can support your research and academic growth!
RSVP: https://forms.office.com/r/wRKDZxSfd7
Hosted by: Rebecca Benson, rle4@psu.edu
Chemical Engineering
Composites for Electromagnetically Active, Soft Materials to Improve Quality of Life
Tuesday, April 15, 2025;
10:35am
CBEB 001
Speaker: Amanda Koh from University of Alabama
Composite materials are an attempt to make something that is better than the sum of its parts. Polymer composites in particular take advantage of the rheological or mechanical properties of the polymer while adding new properties not available from polymers such as electromagnetism. The Koh Lab focuses on understanding and taking advantage of the functionality that comes from blending electromagnetically active fillers with liquid or solid polymers. For example, in the field of soft robotics and stretchable electronics there is a great need for materials that can conform to the human body, are lightweight with low power requirements, are resistant to mechanical shock, and are highly sensitive to the environment all without sacrificing basic electrical properties like conductivity or permittivity. To address these needs, the Koh Lab creates composites of elastomers and room temperature liquid metals, specifically galinstan, which is an alloy of gallium with a melting point below 0oC. We investigate the fundamental interplay between the mechanical and electrical properties of these liquid metal polymer composites (LMPCs) to determine how we can create materials with low compressive, tensile, and torsional modulus in addition to high dielectric permittivity, low dielectric loss, and high dielectric breakdown strength. In addition to our fundamental investigation of LMPCs, the Koh Lab works on integrating LMPCs into devices such as sensors for physiological measurements (e.g., breathing, gait patterns) and robotics (e.g., actuators). A second area of composites that the Koh Lab focuses on is a blend of magnetic particles and non-conductive fluid, called magnetorheological fluids (MRFs). MRFs reversibly transition between a low-viscosity state and high-viscosity state when a magnetic field is applied. The change in viscosity, and a concomitant increase in yield stress, is due to the formation of particle chains in the direction of the magnetic field. MRFs can be used for energy dissipation in earthquake dampers and prosthetics/orthotics, but challenges remain before MRFs can be used commercially. The Koh Lab focuses on the power requirement for MRFs, as the magnetic field is typically generated through an inductor and a stronger field, which leads to stronger chains, requires more current. To create MRFs that can achieve higher performance with lower power we have investigated a wide variety of MRF formulations and the impact of fluid additives. Additionally, we have developed a new magnetoflow-microscope that enables us to visualize chain formation and flow patterns to deeply understand why we are seeing the rheological changes measured. Altogether, the Koh Lab focuses on developing new composite materials from the ground up and using our expertise in fundamental characterization and device integration for improved quality of life, national infrastructure, and personal healthcare.
Dr. Amanda Koh is an Assistant Professor at the University of Alabama in the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering. She joined UA in 2018 after completing her postdoctoral fellowship at the Army Research Laboratory in Aberdeen Proving Ground, MD. Dr. Koh received her Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, NY and her B.S. in Chemical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, MA.
Hosted by: Angela Dixon, adc12@psu.edu
TBD
Thursday, April 17, 2025;
10:35am
CBEB 001
Speaker: Daniel Hammer from University of Pennsylvania
Hosted by: Angela Dixon, adc12@psu.edu
Nuclear Engineering
Advanced Electron Microscopy Imaging of Defects in Metals under Extreme Environments
Thursday, April 17, 2025;
4:00 PM
Nuclear Innovation Commons, Hallowell Bldg
Speaker: Dr. Yang Yang from Penn State University
BIOGRAPHY
Dr. Yang is an assistant professor at Penn State, affiliated with Engineering Science and Mechanics, Nuclear Engineering, and the Materials Research Institute. He completed his postdoc at National Center for Electron Microscopy at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and holds a Ph.D. from MIT and B.Eng. from University of Science and Technology of China. His research centers on advanced electron microscopy to uncover mechanisms of materials degradation in extreme environments. Dr. Yang has received several honors, including the NSF CAREER Award (2022) and the TMS/KIM Young Leaders International Scholar Award (2025).
ABSTRACT
Defects, such as vacancies and stacking faults, play pivotal roles in tuning the properties and performance of materials, such as corrosion resistance, yield strength and radiation damage tolerance. Recent advancements in electron microscopy, such as four-dimensional scanning transmission electron microscopy (4D-STEM) and in situ TEM techniques, have enabled unparalleled characterization of defects in the nanoscale. This presentation highlights our recent work using in situ 4D-STEM to investigate the interactions of defects with extreme environments, including corrosion of Ni20Cr in FLiNaK molten salt and cyclic deformation in a GrCoNi medium entropy alloy.
Hosted by: Jesse Torba, jjt5008@psu.edu
Center for Neural Engineering
Chemistry-Centered Flexible Sensing and Actuation Systems for Advanced Human-Machine Interfaces
Wednesday, April 23, 2025;
12:15 - 1:15 pm
W306 Millennium Science Complex
Speaker: Jinghua Li from The Ohio State University
Sensors and actuators are fundamental building blocks of next-generation human-machine interfaces. This talk presents our recent efforts to establish closed-loop, bidirectional communication and feedback within living systems, with an emphasis on the chemical dimension. The first part of the talk introduces a novel class of flexible, miniaturized probes inspired by biofuel cells for monitoring synaptic release of glutamate in the central nervous system. The resulting sensors can detect real-time changes in glutamate within the biologically relevant concentration range. These advances could aid in basic neuroscience studies and translational engineering, as the sensors provide a diagnostic tool for neurological disorders. The second part of the talk presents our recent work on a bio-integrated gustatory interface, “e-Taste,” which addresses the underrepresented chemical dimension in current VR/AR technologies. This system facilitates remote perception and replication of taste sensations through the coupling of physically separated sensors and actuators with wireless communication modules. Together, these efforts aim to advance the co-design of systems capable of capturing signals and providing feedback, addressing the relatively underexplored chemical aspect in many fields.
https://psu.zoom.us/j/94639233394
Hosted by: Rebecca Benson, rle4@psu.edu
Chemical Engineering
TBD
Thursday, April 24, 2025;
10:35am
CBEB 001
Speaker: Eranda Nikolla from University of Michigan - Ann Arbor
Hosted by: Angela Dixon, adc12@psu.edu
