The UNL Department of Mechanical & Materials Engineering provides quality educational programs for undergraduate and graduate students planning careers in mechanical engineering, engineering mechanics or allied fields.
The undergraduate and graduate programs offered by the Department of Mechanical & Materials Engineering are intended to prepare students for successful careers and lifelong learning in mechanical engineering or allied fields in which the academic discipline serves as an educational base.
The B.S. Degree in Mechanical Engineering is accredited by the Engineering Accreditation Commission of ABET, http://www.abet.org.
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Nebraska Engineering mourns Hewit January 2012 - Lincoln, NE
William "Bill" Hewit died Dec. 31, 2011 at age 88. He earned his B.S. in mechanical engineering at UNL in 1950 and became an independent oil producer. In 1994, Hewit and his wife, Betty-Ruth (also a UNL graduate), endowed the James K. Ludwickson Professorship in the Department of Mechanical Engineering to honor a favorite faculty member who was especially devoted to student development. A celebration of Hewit's life will be Saturday, Jan. 28 at 11 a.m. in Denver. Arrangements are with Bullock Mortuary. More ... |
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MME welcomes Los Alamos' Nastasi, new director of UNL's Nebraska Center for Energy Sciences Research December 2011 - Lincoln, NE
Materials scientist Mike Nastasi will become director of UNL’s Nebraska Center for Energy Sciences Research on Jan. 3. Nastasi also will be a professor of mechanical and materials engineering and will hold the Elmer Koch Professorship. He comes to UNL from Los Alamos National Laboratory where he was a longtime researcher and, since 2009, directed the U.S. Department of Energy’s Energy Frontier Research Center on Materials at Irradiation of Mechanical Extremes. More... |
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UNL engineering student team to work with NASA December 2011 - Lincoln, NE
Nebraska Engineering students are floating on news from NASA that their team was selected for the space agency's 2012 Microgravity University (UNL's fifth consecutive year with the program). Among the 20 students on the UNL team, 16 are from the Department of Mechanical & Materials Engineering. The UNL team's project is Flame Behavior of a MEMS-GC Detector. Learn more at the UNL team's page. More... |
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UNL Formula SAE team: National Formula SAE event headed to Lincoln seeks volunteers October 2011 - Lincoln, NE
When 1,000 participants with 80 collegiate auto racing teams arrive in Lincoln June 20-23 for a 2012 Formula SAE competition, 250 volunteers are needed to help with the event at the Lincoln Airpark. Find out how you can be a part of this! More ... |
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September 2011 - Lincoln, NE
Carl Nelson, UNL associate professor of Mechanical and Materials Engineering, worked with Madonna Rehabilitation Hospital to develop a new Intelligently Controlled Assistive Rehabilitation Elliptical system that helps rehabilitation patients regain or improve their ability to walk. The ICARE device is a finalist for an international da Vinci Award, with public voting a factor. More ... |
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MECH e-News Spring 2011: highlights, student and faculty features Learn about department plans and achievements. |
- Alumna McMullen-Gunn wins SWE’s national “Distinguished New Engineer” Award
The Society of Women Engineers (SWE) announced 52 award winners at its 2011 national conference, October 13-15 in Chicago. Nebraska’s Angel McMullen-Gunn, who earned her B.S. in Mechanical Engineering (2003) and her MEng (2007) at UNL, was one of five winners nationwide for SWE’s 2011 Distinguished New Engineer Award. McMullen-Gunn is a manufacturing business manager and senior mechanical engineer at Hamilton Sundstrand, an aerospace mechanical operations facility, in York, Neb. She and her husband, Darrin, live in Seward with their young son, Lucian. McMullen-Gunn was cited for her career achievements spanning several engineering realms and her significant involvement in SWE as an officer and role model. The Distinguished New Engineer Award honors women engineers who have demonstrated outstanding technical performance, as well as leadership in SWE and other professional organizations and the community, in the first 10 years of their careers. - Team pursues rare earth magnets' development with ARPA-E grant from DOE
Jeff Shield, MME department chair and professor, is part of a research team that was awarded an Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy grant from the Department of Energy. The grant is for $3.4 million overall for three years, seeking Multiscale Development of L10 Materials for Rare-Earth-Free Permanent Magnets. The team, led by Laura Lewis of Northeastern University, is developing a process to create bulk quantities of iron and nickel in a unique crystal structure with powerful magnetic properties. This iron-nickel crystal structure is found naturally in meteorites and the team will apply advanced synthesis to artificially create this magnetic material structure. The work will stabilize this desired structure by adding other elements, to achieve properties which previously developed over millions of years with meteorites formed in space. Based on this structure, powerful new magnets could be developed with properties exceeding those of scarce and costly rare earth magnets. The goal of this project is to demonstrate bulk magnetic properties with subsequently scalable fabrication processes. - Hallbeck, Rousek gain honorable mention in Human Factors Prize
With more than 40 health care ergonomics entries in its 2011 Human Factors Prize, the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society announced five winners whose papers will be published in the December 2011 issue of its journal, Human Factors. “Improving Medication Management through the Redesign of the Hospital Code Cart Medication Drawer,” by UNL graduate student Justin B. Rousek and Professor M. Susan Hallbeck, was one of four runners-up in the competition. - Manufacturers collaborate with UNL engineers
A group of Lincoln-based manufacturers had a field trip to Nebraska Engineering labs to see what can happen when some industrial research money, academic curiosity, local manufacturing help, engineering expertise and the high cost of farming get together. George Gogos, professor of mechanical engineering, showed them a flamer/cultivator that offers farmers a new version of an old and less expensive method of controlling weeds. - Nebraska Engineering grad students earn NSF fellowships
In April, the National Science Foundation awarded Graduate Research Fellowships to an elite selection of recipients nationwide; four students at the UNL College of Engineering were honored, including two in the Department of Mechanical Engineering: Thomas Frederick and Tyler Wortman. According to NSF, these fellowships provide three years of support for the graduate education of individuals who have demonstrated their potential for significant achievements in science and engineering research. The NSF Graduate Fellowship benefits include: $30,000 annual stipend; $10,500 cost-of-education allowance; international research and professional development opportunities; and TeraGrid Supercomputer access. - Huang's work featured in Feb. 13 edition of Nature Materials
Jinsong Huang, assistant professor of mechanical engineering, applied ferroelectric polymer layers in the structure of organic solar cells, to make energy harvesting more efficient and with less expensive materials. The innovation was reported by the prominent scientific journal Nature Materials in its Feb. 13 online edition. - UNL Parents Association honors mechanical engineering faculty
The UNL Parents Association solicits nominations by parents on the faculty or staff employee/s who made a significant difference in their student's life. Among several College of Engineering honorees in 2010-11, several members of the Department of Mechanical Engineering faculty were recognized: Associate Professor Kevin Cole (his third year nominated), and Assistant Professor Linxia Gu (her second year nominated). - Bircher honored with National Security Language Initiative for Youth (NSLI-Y) Scholarship
Walter Bircher, a UNL freshman from Omaha who majors in mechanical engineering, was awarded one of 650 NSLI-Y Scholarships for 2010-11. The merit-based scholarship covers all program costs that enabled Bircher to study the Turkish language in Turkey for a summer. Funded by the U.S. State Department and administered by non-profit organizations, NSLI-Y seeks to increase Americans' capacity to engage with native speakers of critical languages and promote mutual understanding through educational and cultural activities. (Applications for future NSLI-Y opportunities are available at http://www.nsliforyouth.org.) - Huang awarded DOD honor
Mechanical engineering assistant professor Jinsong Huang gained a 2010 Young Investor Program award with a $200,000 grant from the Department of Defense's Threat Reduction Agency for his project: “A Novel High Quantum Efficiency Mechanism in Organic Photodetector for Sensing the Radiation from Weapons of Mass Destruction.” - Szdlowski receives teaching award
Wieslaw Szdlowski, associate professor of mechanical engineering, received a Distinguished Teaching Award at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln's annual All University Honors Convocation in April. - Engineering faculty chosen for research fellows program
Fourteen UNL faculty members were selected for the 2010 Research Development Fellows Program, an initiative to help pre-tenure faculty successfully compete for grants. Among the 14 assistant professors selected as research fellows were seven faculty members from the College of Engineering, including Jinsong Huang, Mechanical Engineering. - Faculty gain promotions, tenure
UNL regents approved 75 UNL faculty to receive tenure or promotion in April. MECH's Shane Farritor was promoted to professor, and Carl Nelson received tenure and was promoted to associate professor.
FACULTY OPENINGS
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The department is accepting applications for TWO TENURE-TRACK ASSISTANT PROFESSOR POSITIONS.
Pierson Graduate Seminars
