Momentum - The Magazine for Virginia Tech Mechanical Engineering Vol. 4 No. 4 Winter 2019 | Page 4

04 AZIMESKANDARIAN NICHOLAS AND REBECCA DES CHAMPS PROFESSOR DEPARTMENT HEAD, MECHANICAL ENGINEERING Interdisciplinary engineering I am delighted to share more innovative interdisciplinary research and dis- coveries of our faculty and students with you in this issue of our Momentum Magazine. First, I am pleased to congratulate Drs. Oumar Barry and Ling Li who just received National Science Foundation CAREER Awards to study and develop inspection robots for power lines, and the structural design and formation mechanisms of biomineralized architected metamaterials, respectively. This highly selective honor illustrates our faculty’s commitment to cutting-edge re- search in keeping with our mission as a land-grant university. (Find Dr. Barry's award covered on page 12, and Dr. Li's on page 13.) Our cover story this quarter is another case for interdisciplinary work. Dr. Ling Li and collaborators at several universities, including MIT and Harvard, conducted an in-depth study of the chiton mollusk to model armor, based on the mollusk’s distinctive plating and scale arrangements. (See page 8) Dr. Shima Shahab is working in smart materials and vibrations with collaborators in mining and minerals engineering on a $900,000 project to making mining more efficient and, as a result, safer for miners. (See page 6) Our nuclear engineering program has recently received two grants worth $850,000 to help both students and faculty. Principals involved are Drs. Ali Haghighat, Juliana Pacheco Duarte, and Azim Eskandarian. The nuclear pro- gram will continue to grow with issues as diverse as nuclear security, policy, materials, and energy. (See page 14) As evident, our trans- and inter-disciplinary collaborative research is helping to solve some of the most pressing and challenging engineering problems with creativity and innovations. Finally, our work also highlights how cross-disci- plinary projects are redefining what it means to be a mechanical engineer. Please enjoy this issue of Momentum, and I hope you all enjoyed your well-de- served break between semesters. Happy new year! With Best Regards, Azim Eskandarian