Momentum - The Magazine for Virginia Tech Mechanical Engineering Vol. 1 No. 3 | Page 5

speakers

Williams at NIST
Associate
Professor
Chris Williams
gave an invited talk titled,
Williams
“Molecules
to Manufacturing: In-situ
Measurements,” at the
NIST “Measurement
Science Roadmap for
Polymer-Based Additive
Manufacturing” workshop June 9-10. Williams
was also invited by the
NSF to attend the White
House Office of Science
and Technology Policy’s
“Maker to Manufacturer
Stakeholder event” in
Washington D.C. June
20. About 50 people
were invited to discuss
the next generation of
the “Maker” movement
and how to transition
the emerging “makers”
to careers in the manufacturing industry. This
event and the National
Maker Faire were part of
National Week of Making
June 17-23.

Ekkad presents
keynote
Srinath Ekkad, Rolls
Royce Professor of
Engineering,
presented a
keynote at the
Ekkad
2016 International Symposium of Heat
Transfer and Heat Powered Cycle in Nottingham,
England, June 26-29.

The talk was titled “Advances in Enhanced Heat
Exchange Behaviour for
Thermoelectric Energy
Conversion Systems”
The program combined
parallel oral sessions
with keynote lectures
by internationally recognized scientists. Plenary
sessions provided opportunities for attendees to
become acquainted with
the latest technologies
of Heat Transfer and
Heat Powered Cycles
developed for energy
efficiency improvement.
An exhibition brought
together some of the
world's leading manufacturers of heat transfer
equipment.

Kanimba in Charlotte
Eurydice Kanimba,
a doctoral
student in
the Tian lab,
presented
her work on
Kanimba
modeling
PbTe thermoelectric generator at the
ASME Power and Energy
Conference and Exhibit in
Charlotte, NC in June.

Tian in DC and TN
Zhiting Tian,
assistant
professor,
gave a talk
on Thermal
Conductivity
Tian
of Bottlebrush
Polymers, and chaired
a session on Functional
Nanomaterials at the

Heat Transfer, Fluids
Engineering, and Nanochannels, Microchannels,
and Minichannels Conferences in Washington, D.C.
in July.
Tian also visited the
Oak Ridge National
Laboratory in Tennessee
Aug. 19 and delivered an
invited talk on Phonon
and Electron Transport in
Hard and Soft Materials.

Bayandor at NC
MoNS
Associate
Professor
Javid Bayandor gave a
talk in August
Bayandor
to the North
Carolina Mu seum of
Natural Science as part of
their Final Fridays series.
Bayandor was there as
part of the NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts
Program to talk about his
work with the agency.

Mechanisms &
Robotics Conference
Pinhas Ben-Tzvi, associate professor, and
doctoral students Wael
Saab and Anil Kumar
published and presented
the following papers at
the 40th Mechanisms &
Robotics Conference in
Charlotte, NC in August:
- Design and Analysis
of a miniature Modular
Inchworm Robot
- Design and Analysis
of a Discrete Modular
Robotic Tail for Improved

Performance of Mobile
Robots.
- Design and Analysis
of a Robotic Modular Leg
Mechanism for Legged
Robots.
- Extraction of Impact
of Wind Turbulence on
RC Helicopters Using
Machine Learning.
Also during the conference Ben-Tzvi and
undergraduate senior
design students Matthew
Francom, Clinton Burns,
Philip Repisky, Benjamin
Medina, Alex Kimney,
and Erick Tello published
and presented the following peer-reviewed
Conference Proceedings
paper:
- Development of
Autonomous Robotic
Cataract Surgery Device.
As part of the conference, Ben-Tzvi held the
roles of Session Chair
and Session Organizer
for a technical session
on Mobile Robots; and
Session Co-Organizer for
a technical session on
Modeling, Analysis, and
Estimation.

Zheng in New Jersey
Rayne Zheng, assistance professor, gave an
invited talk at Johnson
& Johnson called "Additive Manufacturing and
Lightweight, High-Performance Materials" In New
Brunswick, NJ in July.