Title: VES for Human-robot Collaboration – Understanding, Communication, and Trust between Humans and Robots

Moderators:
Yunbo Zhang, Rochester Institute of Technology
Marco Rossoni, Politecnico Milano

Description: Modern manufacturing systems are expected to evolve into highly automated and intelligent systems for handling complex tasks. However, certain manual operations persist on the shop floor that are either impractical or unattainable without human involvement. Industry 5.0 has emerged as a practical approach that complements the existing Industry 4.0 paradigm by emphasizing the transition toward sustainable, human-centric, and resilient manufacturing. Human-robot collaboration (HRC) is considered pivotal in this transition, wherein robots collaborate with human partners to automate physically demanding tasks and integrate humans' high-level cognition and decision-making. Unfortunately, current HRC methods have seen limited deployment in industries, facing challenges related to understanding, communication, building trust between humans and robots, effective interfaces, task division, allocation, and optimization. There are several specific research questions to ask: How should the interfaces and interactions be designed to support human operators in communicating with robots effectively, efficiently, and intuitively? How should trust between humans and robots be built and the safety of humans be ensured? How should human operators' high-level decision-making ability be leveraged to improve the efficiency and flexibility of the HRC? How should Artificial Intelligence (AI) be designed to improve robots' cognitive abilities so that they are able to understand human operators' intentions and learn from human partners?

Objectives: The objective of this panel is to bring together a group of experts in robotics, manufacturing, computer science, ergonomics and human factors, human-computer interaction, social sciences in engineering, and digital technologies for a cross-disciplinary discussion on the past, present, and future of Human-robot Collaboration in virtual environments, with an emphasis on understanding, communication, and trust. The panel discussion will explore: The panel discussion will explore: (1) where we stand in HRC research regarding understanding, communication, and trust between humans and robots; (2) what the challenges are and what the potential key enablers might be; (3) what intellectual challenges lie ahead; and (4) what steps we, as researchers, should take to investigate this exciting avenue.

Title: JCISE SPOTLIGHT TALKS ON HUMAN-ROBOT COLLABORATION IN INDUSTRY 5.0

Speakers:
Dr. Yunbo "WILL" Zhang, Rochester Institute of Technology
Professor Chih-Hsing Chu, National Tsing Hua University

Description: "Human-robot collaboration (HRC) is considered a pivotal element of Industry 4.0 and 5.0, wherein robots work alongside human partners to automate repetitive, physically demanding tasks and replace humans in hazardous or extreme working environments. Unfortunately, existing HRC methods mostly remain in laboratories and have not been extensively deployed in industries. They face challenges related to understanding, communication, and trust between humans and robots, effective interactions and interfaces, integration of robots with human cognition, task division, allocation, and optimization, as well as environmental sensing and perception and ensuring safety. This special session will invite papers accepted to the JCISE special issue on "Human-Robot Collaboration in Industry 5.0." This special issue of JCISE seeks to explore and compile the forefront of research and innovation in HRC within the context of Industry 5.0. We welcome contributions that present state-of-the-art methodologies, tools, systems, models, and case studies aimed at facilitating the advancement and realization of HRC in the foreseeable future.

50th Anniversary Signature Event: Panel - Successes, Aspirations and Opportunities for Design Automation

Host/Chair: Souma Chowdhury, University at Buffalo

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Date/Time: Tuesday, Aug 27
Duration: 100 minutes

Format: 10 min presentation by each panelist with 3 slides each covering the following 3 points

1. Looking back over the past 50 years, an example of a major success in Design Automation – related to collective research milestone, educational innovation or industry adoption/tech-translation.
2. An example of a critical overarching technical challenge to be addressed in Design Automation over the next decade or so.
3. An example of an impending socio-economic problem or problem affecting the quality of life of many, where Design Automation can play a central role in solving it.

Question & Answer from Audience

Panelists

Carolyn Seepersad
Georgia Institute of Technology

Carolyn Conner Seepersad is the Woodruff Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technoloy. She is the Editor-in-Chief of the ASME Journal of Mechanical Design. Her research interests include design for additive manufacturing, simulation-based design of materials and structures, and process innovation in additive manufacturing. She is a member of the organizing committee of the annual Solid Freeform Fabrication Symposium and a member of SME's Additive Manufacturing Technical Leadership Committee. She is the author of more than 150 peer-reviewed conference and journal publications.

Prof. Kristina Shea
ETH Zurich

Prof. Kristina Shea is a Full Professor for Engineering Design and Computing in Mechanical and Processing Engineering at ETH Zürich since 2012. Her lab’s research combines engineering design, computation and fabrication to design and prototype creative engineering systems with new functionalities that help to achieve sustainable development goals. Current research topics include computational design, design for Additive Manufacturing (AM), multi-material AM and 4D printing as well as new research in development engineering. Her lab investigates a wide variety of application areas across a number of industries including consumer products, space, automotive, built environment and biomedical. Kristina Shea graduated in Mechanical Engineering (BS 1993; MS 1995; PhD 1997) from Carnegie Mellon University. She has held academic positions at EPFL (Switzerland) where she was a post-doc, University of Cambridge (UK) where she was a tenured Lecturer (Assistant Professor) and TU München (Germany) where she was a tenured Associate Professor. She is a Fellow of ASME and member of the Design Society.

Vadim Shapiro
International Computer Science Institute

Vadim Shapiro is the Co-Founder & CTO of Intact Solutions, providing advanced modeling and simulation solutions for generative design and advanced manufacturing. He is also a Distinguished Research Fellow at the International Computer Science Institute in Berkeley, CA and Bernard A. and Frances M. Weideman Professor Emeritus at the University of Wisconsin – Madison. Shapiro holds Bachelor’s degrees in Mathematics and in Computer Science from NYU, MS in Computer Science from UCLA, as well as MS and PhD degrees in Mechanical Engineering from Cornell University. Prior to his academic career he was on research staff at the General Motors R&D Center. He is Fellow of ASME, and his technical contributions have been recognized by a number of awards, including the ASME Design Automation Award, and the Pierre Bézier Award. He currently serves as the Editor-in-Chief of the Computer-Aided Design (Elsevier) journal.

Shapour Azarm
University of Maryland

Shapour Azarm received his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. He then joined the University of Maryland, College Park, where he is a Professor of Mechanical Engineering. His research interest is centered on design optimization of engineered systems. His current research is focused on (i) predictive maintenance of unmanned systems using machine learning and optimization techniques, (ii) multi-objective robust optimization under uncertainty, (iii) reduced-order modeling with applications in additive manufacturing and reliability-based optimization, and (iv) multi-vehicle routing considering multiple recharging stations and vehicle failure. He is a Senior Advisor of Structural and Multidisciplinary Optimization, was Editor-in-Chief of ASME Journal of Mechanical Design, and served as associate editor, guest editor and editorial board member of many other journals. He is currently serving as Vice-Chair of the ASME Technical Committee on Publications and Communications. In the past, he served as Chair of the ASME Design Engineering Division, Chair of the ASME Design Automation Committee, Conference and Paper Review Chair of the ASME Design Automation Conference. He has received the Procter & Gamble paper awards, ASME/Ford Best Paper Award, ASME Design Automation Award, ASME Robert E. Abbott Award, and ASME Machine Design Award. He is a Fellow and Life Member of the ASME.

Yan Fu
Ford Motor Company

Dr. Yan Fu is the Senior Director of Strategy and Enterprise Analytics at Ford Motor Company, where she leads the development of data-driven solutions for strategic decision-making. Leveraging cutting-edge technologies like Gen AI, machine learning, and optimization, her team enhances profitability, ensures regulatory compliance, and supports key initiatives such as electrification. A prolific innovator, Dr. Fu holds 7 US patents and has authored over 150 publications. Her distinguished career at Ford has earned her numerous accolades, including the SAE Henry Ford II Distinguished Award, three Henry Ford Technology Awards, and the Women of Color STEM DTX Conference Technology All-Star Award. Dr. Fu is a Fellow of both the American Society of Mechanical Engineers and the Society of Automotive Engineers.

Dr. Kathryn Jablokow
Program Director for Engineering Design & Systems Engineering
Civil, Mechanical and Manufacturing Innovation (CMMI) Division
National Science Foundation (NSF)

Presentation Title: Extreme Design and the Perfect Lifecycle

Abstract: Extreme Design (XD) is an emerging field of design research that is, by its nature, focused on exceptional situations and conditions, from designing for extreme environments to designing systems of extremely high complexity to designing for situations of extreme disruption. One aim of Extreme Design is to reveal new design principles, methods, processes, and tools by looking at extreme variations within a given context, and then to transfer those results back to the non-extreme parts of that same context—or to a different context altogether. Extreme Design is more than simply considering extreme users, which may shift a particular product into new territory, but which may not change the deeper design principles themselves. Done right, Extreme Design should keep us connected to the normal while we consider the highly unusual, so the pathway remains complete. Similarly, when we design for manufacturing and lifecycle, we are thinking about the end even as we think about the beginning, questioning every design decision on the basis of its anticipated downstream effects and maintaining a clear sustainable path from planning to prototyping to production to maintenance. In this presentation, we will consider how the search for extreme design principles and the search for the perfect integration of design and manufacturing can inform and challenge each other and our creativity as engineers.

Biography: Dr. Jablokow's professional experience spans academia and the public sector. In her 34 years at Penn State University, she has served as an educator, researcher, and administrator at multiple campuses. Dr. Jablokow has built a highly successful research program that spans the engineering design domain, from robotics and manufacturing to design cognition, design education, and high performance engineering design teams. Her funding sources include NSF and other Federal agencies, as well as industry, and she is the recipient of many teaching and research honors and awards, including ASME Fellow and the ASME Ruth and Joel Spira Outstanding Design Educator Award. Dr. Jablokow served as Program Director for the Engineering Design and Systems Engineering (EDSE) program at the National Science Foundation (2019-2024), where she guided the design research community in new directions while overseeing a $40M portfolio of projects. Dr. Jablokow's service has extended across multiple professional organizations, including ASME, ASEE, IEEE, and the Design Society. She served as an ASME ABET Accreditation Evaluator for Mechanical Engineering programs (2000-2008), as well as Chair of ASME’s Technology and Society Division (2009-11). In 2023, Dr. Jablokow was elected to the ASME Board of Governors and serves as Board Liaison to the Committee on Sustainability. Dr. Jablokow earned her B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from The Ohio State University, and an Executive Certificate in Public Leadership from Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government.

Monday @ 2:10pm-3:50pm

This special session provides a space for the DTM community to engage with theoretical and methodological considerations of qualitative research and our ability to create knowledge using these methods. Attendees of this session will gain a deeper understanding of the current applications of qualitative research in design and engineering, and will have the opportunity to contribute to conversation via facilitated discussions. This session includes six presentations organized across two panels: (1) "Generating Design Knowledge through Qualitative Design Research" and (2) "Fostering Knowledge Transfer through Qualitative Design Research." Panel 1 will showcase presentations aimed at supporting the larger DTM community in conducting and reporting qualitative research. Panel 2 will highlight areas of growth for the design research community, building upon work in spaces such as human-computer interaction, public engagement, and industry - bridging both design practice and research. This special session will combine paper and abstract presentations with panels and open discussions with the community to explore how DTM can further support qualitative design research.

Tuesday spanning two sessions @ 8:10am-9:10am and 9:20am-10:40am

Society faces increasingly complex social justice challenges, from educational inequity to insufficient provision of social services, from climate change to disparities in global health services and outcomes. Engineers and designers play critical roles in creating and studying products, services, technologies, and policies that can aim to address social injustices. There is a growing priority in the engineering and design research communities to meaningfully incorporate justice into design, and there has been an increasing amount of energy regarding justice in design in prior years of IDETC. This year, we look forward to an exciting and expansive special session on Design Justice, bringing together perspectives from researchers and practitioners inside and outside of academic institutions. We will begin the session with researchers and practitioners presenting their work in Design Justice. We will then hold a panel discussion with presenting researchers and practitioners to discuss current and future work in the field of Design Justice, focusing on how justice relates to design outcomes, processes, participants, and pedagogy. This special session aims to highlight innovative research and practice in Design Justice, and to provide space for researchers and practitioners to discuss priorities in Design Justice going forward.

See Session Flyer

Wednesday @ 8am-9:40am

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In this panel presentation, we will hear from academic faculty and industry professionals discussing their experiences with unique design challenges that cannot be fully addressed by design theory or system engineering practices alone. This panel is comprised of those with experience in academia, private industry, and on federally funded projects. Each panelist will provide insight into specific challenges faced within these various contexts and will describe their efforts to address them. Topics may include biologically inspired design, developments in computer-aided design tools, how personnel and project scale impact process, or how the context of stakeholders constrains the design space. Ultimately, this panel serves as a call to action for systems engineering and design theory researchers to address these contemporary challenges.

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Panelists:

Dr. Astrid Layton is an assistant professor and Donna Walker Faculty Fellow at Texas A&M University in the Mechanical Engineering department. She served on ASME's DTM technical committee from 2020-23 and is currently an Associate Editor for ASME's Journal of Mechanical Design. She is the recipient of several awards, including a 2024 NSF CAREER Award from the EDSE program and a 2021 ASME IDETC-CIE best paper award in SEIKM. Her research focuses on the use of biological ecosystems as inspiration for achieving sustainability and resilience in the design of complex human systems and systems of systems.

Matthew Mueller is the manager of Education Innovation at PTC where he is the product manager for Onshape's education features and leads academic research collaborations. He completed his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering at Tufts University where his research focused on engineering education. His current research focuses on how CAD can be used to understand and improve design.

Diarny Fernandes is a mechanical engineer at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory working on the Dragonfly mission as part of NASA's New Frontiers program. He earned a master's degree in mechanical engineering from MIT and is completing a second master's degree in space systems engineering at Johns Hopkins. Diarny is the lead engineer on the Dragonfly thermal development test module (DTM), which is a full-scale thermal model of the Dragonfly lander for thermal design testing and analysis.

Interagency Working Group (IAWG) on Engineering Complex Systems: Discussion on Crosscutting Topics

The IAWG on Engineering Complex Systems will present an overview of this multi-government agency working group and its’ efforts to identify and address cross-cutting engineering complex systems that can impact governmental engineering operations. Additionally, the IAWG will present and discuss three specific topics that have been targeted for inter-agency collaboration to identify best practices and lessons learned. Those identified topics are: Certifying Additively Manufactured Parts, Supply Chain Risk Reduction Approaches during Acquisition and Digital Twins to Predict Failure.

Moderators

Panelist Groups: Senior representatives from DOD, NNSA, DHS, NSF, and NASA

Diana Trujillo
Flight Director
NASA's Johnson Space Center

Presentation Title: Us as One: Leading Teams and Exploring Space Together

Abstract: The space exploration industry is changing and growing at a faster pace than ever before. A new generation of space engineers and teams now find ourselves evolving the way we approach challenges from what can we do next? to what is the right thing to do now? More than ever before, we are a species in motion, with human spaceflight and robotic missions expanding our understanding of the unknown at an unprecedented rate, pushing us to ask over and over again, are we doing the right thing?

As missions become more complex and time becomes more precious, explorers around the world find ourselves trying to figure out how to effectively lead multidisciplinary teams in the unknown environment of space, where the scope of the problem is an ever-evolving story. In this keynote, NASA Flight Director Diana Trujillo will share what she has learned about leading multidisciplinary teams at the cutting edge of exploration on the surface of Mars (the Curiosity, Perseverance, Ingenuity robotic mission) and in Low Earth Orbit (International Space Station).

Biography: Diana Trujillo is a Flight Director at NASA's Johnson Space Center near Houston, TX. As the 108th Flight Director in NASA's history—and the first born in a Spanish-speaking country—Trujillo is one of a small cadre who lead the Mission Control Center during all of NASA's human spaceflight missions, including ongoing operations of the International Space Station, the Artemis missions returning humans to the Moon and onward to Mars, and key flights of the Dragon, Cygnus, and Starliner orbital vehicles.

Prior to her current position, Trujillo played a key role in three landmark robotic missions to Mars: Curiosity and Perseverance, the most advanced Mars rovers ever built; and Ingenuity, the first helicopter to fly on another planet. Over the course of fourteen years at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, she held a number of leadership roles on those missions, including Flight Director, Mission Lead, Deputy Project System Engineer, Deputy Team Chief of Engineering, and Robotic Arm Science phase lead.

Born and raised in Colombia, Trujillo immigrated to the United States at the age of 17 to pursue what she had been told was an impossible dream: working for NASA. She enrolled in English as a Second Language courses, working full-time to support her studies at Miami-Dade Community College, where her academic performance provided her the opportunity to earn a B.S. in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Maryland, with additional studies at the University of Florida. While an undergrad, Trujillo also participated in the NASA Academy at Goddard Space Flight Center, NASA's premiere leadership training and research program for graduate and undergraduate students.

After graduating, she worked at Orbital Sciences Corporation (now part of Northrop Grumman), helping the company win a $170 million contract from NASA to develop the Cygnus cargo spacecraft -- a vehicle that has now successfully conducted twenty missions to resupply the International Space Station.

In addition to her technical roles at JPL, Trujillo also created and hosted #JuntosPerseveramos, NASA's first ever Spanish-language live broadcast of a major mission milestone. The #JuntosPerseveramosprogram was viewed live by millions in the United States, and was broadcast on television throughout Latin America.

Trujillo has previously served on the non-profit boards of the Brooke Owens Fellowship, the Columbia Memorial Space Center, and the Children's Center at Caltech. She is also a passionate advocate for diversity in STEM, having pushed for more inclusion of the Latinx community in venues ranging from the White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for Hispanics to the educational program Plaza Sésamo (Sesame Street).

In 2017, Trujillo was named one of "Los 22 Más," the 22 Colombians who best represent Colombia and all Colombians in the USA. In 2021, she was honored with the Cruz de Boyacá and named a Comendador of the Orden de Boyacá by the President of Colombia, the highest honors Colombia awards to civilians.

Trujillo lives near Houston, TX with her husband and their two children.

Shaurya Prakash
Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
The Ohio State University

Keynote Title: Improving Cancer Diagnostics through Innovative Micro- and Nanosystems

Abstract: Cancer continues to be a challenging disease to diagnose early and treat, despite the many advances enabled since the establishment of the National Cancer Institute, which has seen well over $40B investment by the US federal government alone. To advance the science and technology for enabling better care and provide earlier diagnosis, our lab has focused on developing technologies that rely on both microelectromechanical (MEMS) technologies and microfluidics. In this talk, I will share our team's work in developing a unique impedance mapping system that can potentially allow real-time imaging of tissues to determine surgical margins. The impedance mapping system showed the need for rapid fluid analysis and allowed our creative team to consider developing microfluidic tools for potential point-of-care diagnostics through biomarker identification and use of liquid biopsies. I will close this talk by describing an emerging, blood-vessel-on-chip technology from our group that tackles the fundamental question in cancer biology for how tumors grow and how this technology can transcend disease boundaries and potentially be applied to pathologies beyond cancer.

Biography: Shaurya Prakash graduated with a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2007. Following his brief stint as an Assistant Professor at Rutgers University, he joined the faculty in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at The Ohio State University in 2009. He is a Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME). At Ohio State, he directs the Microsystems and Nanosystems Laboratory, where his team develops novel technologies for applications in healthcare for cancer, wound healing, and infectious disease; and in water purification. He is also a co-director for Ohio State's Infectious Diseases Institute focusing on Microbial Communities. Therefore, his group addresses fundamental scientific questions towards enabling new technologies that solve problems critical to modern societal needs. Prof. Prakash has published over 100 peer-reviewed articles, holds multiple patents, and has authored a book titled, Nanofluidics and Microfluidics: Systems and Applications. He is an Associate Editor for Microfluidics and Nanofluidics and Scientific Reports, both part of the SpringerNature journal collection. His multi-disciplinary research is funded by diverse government and industry sponsors.

Sunil K. Agrawal, Ph.D., Professor
Department of Mechanical Engineering
Department of Rehabilitation and Regenerative Medicine Columbia University

Keynote Title: Rehabilitation Robotics: Improving Everyday Human Functions

Abstract: Neural disorders, old age, and traumatic brain injury limit activities of daily living. Robotics can be used in novel ways to characterize human neuromuscular responses and retrain human functions. Columbia University Robotics and Rehabilitation (ROAR) Laboratory designs innovative mechanisms/robotics with these goals and performs scientific studies to improve human functions such as standing, walking, stairclimbing, trunk control, head turning, and others. Human experiments have targeted individuals with stroke, cerebral palsy, Parkinson's disease, spinal cord injury, ALS, and elderly subjects. The talk will provide an overview of these robotic technologies and scientific studies performed with them to demonstrate strong potential of rehabilitation robotics to improve human functions and quality of life of people.

Biography: Sunil Agrawal received a Ph.D. degree in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford University in 1990. He is currently a Professor and Director of Robotics and Rehabilitation (ROAR) Laboratory at Columbia University, located both in engineering and medical campuses of the university. Dr. Agrawal has published more than 500 journal and conference papers, 19 U.S. patents, and 3 books. He is a Fellow of the ASME and AIMBE. His honors include a NSF Presidential Faculty Fellowship from the White House in 1994, a Bessel Prize from Germany in 2003, and a Humboldt US Senior Scientist Award in 2007. He is a recipient of 2016 Machine Design Award from ASME for “seminal contributions to design of robotic exoskeletons for gait training of stroke patients” and 2016 Mechanisms and Robotics Award from the ASME for “cumulative contributions and being an international leading figure in mechanical design and robotics”. He is a 2023 recipient of a Paintal Chair from Indian National Science Academy. He was a Plenary Speaker at the 2024 IEEE International Conference in Robotics and Automation in Yokohama. He has successfully directed 40+ PhD student theses and has received Best Paper awards in ASME and IEEE sponsored robotics conferences. He is the founding Editor-in-Chief of the journal Wearable Technologies published by Cambridge University Press. He organized the IEEE BioRob 2020 conference in New York City and served as its conference chair.

More Info:
• Website
• Google Scholar Page

Join us to learn about the various career paths of professionals who work in the field of audio and auditory engineering. They will share how they got to where they are today, their current research efforts, and discuss problems facing the worlds regarding audio and human hearing.

This panel is intended for students, early career engineers, and those looking to learn more about audio and auditory engineering day to day practice. The panel will also discuss challenges that they currently face and the future of audio/auditory engineering practice.

Goal:
Introduce students, ECEs, and other professionals on the field of audio engineering and how it can impact industries such as health, human communication, threat detection, and auditory experiences.

Professor Norbert Hoffmann
Hamburg University of Technology

Presentation Title: Complexity in Vibrations and Dynamics – Phenomena and Methods

Abstract: This talk puts mechanical vibrations and dynamics in engineering and technology into the context of system complexity. The term complexity seems rather loosely defined at first. Still, I will exploit it for pointing to some of the key limitations of how vibrations and dynamics are viewed and approached in present engineering. From this I hope to sketch some directions in which novel and potentially more powerful perspectives on real-world vibration phenomena and related engineering methods might emerge or be developed.

Jiong Tang
Pratt & Whitney Professor
School of Mechanical, Aerospace, and Manufacturing Engineering
University of Connecticut

Keynote Title:Engineering of Vibratory Systems Through Piezoelectric Circuitry: the 4th Dimension Exploration

Abstract: Piezoelectric transducers feature two-way electromechanical coupling that can seamless join the mechanical and electrical domains together. One can directly integrate circuitry elements to piezoelectric transducers embedded in the host structure to favorably alter the structural dynamic behaviors for control, sensing, and system identification purposes. In this talk, the concept of piezoelectric circuitry is briefly reviewed first, followed by illustrative examples in passive and active vibration controls in which the challenges and progresses of mechatronic design and synthesis schemes are highlighted. Subsequently, the utilization of piezoelectric circuitry for active interrogation of structural damage identification through impedance measurement is presented in detail, which features two fronts of explorations. From the algorithmic aspect, a multi-objective optimization framework is formulated that can adequately utilize the measurement information to facilitate diagnosis. From the measurement circuitry aspect, it is demonstrated that the tunability of the piezoelectric circuitry can effectively narrow down the search results of damage identification.

Biography: Jiong Tang is the Pratt & Whitney Professor in School of Mechanical, Aerospace, and Manufacturing Engineering, University of Connecticut. Dr. Tang's principal teaching and research interests are in the general areas of dynamics and vibrations, control, sensing and automation. He received the B.S. and M.S. degrees in Applied Mechanics from Fudan University, China, in 1989 and 1992, respectively, and the Ph.D. degree in Mechanical Engineering from the Pennsylvania State University in 2001. Prior to joining UConn in 2002, he worked in GE Research Center as a research engineer. Dr. Tang has studied a series of research subjects including smart materials, motion and vibration controls, sensing and signal processing, design optimization, computational intelligence, and modeling and analysis of multi-physics systems and processes. Dr. Tang's research has been supported extensively by federal agencies including NSF, DOD, NASA, DOT etc, and by industries.

Dr. Serife Tol
Associate Professor, Mechanical Engineering
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

Keynote Title: Harnessing Structural Periodicity for Wave Control Toward Sensing, Harvesting, and Space Applications

Abstract: The study of structural periodicity in engineered materials, such as metamaterials, phononic crystals, and metasurfaces, has opened new frontiers in wave control. Our research group explores the fundamental principles and advanced techniques for harnessing structural periodicity to manipulate wave propagation for diverse applications in sensing, energy harvesting, and space technology. By leveraging the unique properties of these periodic structures, we demonstrate how they can be used to enhance ultrasonic sensing and nondestructive testing, improve the efficiency of energy harvesters, and develop innovative solutions for space applications. The first part of my talk will focus on gradient index phononic crystal (GRIN-PC) lenses conforming pipe-like structures. Conformal GRIN-PC lenses are designed by tailoring unit cell geometry according to a specific refractive index profile. We explore the focusing of multi-mode guided waves at the desired locations (i.e. sensor nodes) along the pipe structure to address the attenuation problem in long-range pipelines. Then, I will explain how we exploit the negative refraction property of phononic crystals for designing a super lens. Unlike GRIN-PC lenses, which have at least minimum wavelength resolution as their natural limit, negative refraction-based PC lenses can potentially overcome the diffraction limit, which is highly favorable in medical imaging or other applications requiring localized wave intensity in areas smaller than a square wavelength. The second part of my talk will deal with reconfigurable metasurfaces for full wavefront control with an emphasis on energy harvesting of low frequency elastic waves. We fully analyze and design the elastic metasurfaces by tailoring the phase gradient of individual unit structures for different wave functions and present theoretical findings along with experimental validation. The last part of my talk will highlight the potential of metamaterials in space applications, such as novel in-space manufacturable extended solar arrays and antennas with high precision and mass efficiency.

Biography: Dr. Serife Tol is an Associate Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Michigan (UM), Ann Arbor. She earned her Ph.D. from the Georgia Institute of Technology in 2017, following her M.S. (2012) and B.S. (2009) degrees from Middle East Technical University (METU) in Ankara, Turkey. Between 2009 and 2012, she worked as a Test and Analysis Engineer in the Defense Systems Technologies Business Sector at ASELSAN (Turkey, Ankara). Prior to her appointment at UM in 2018, she was a visiting scholar in the Civil and Materials Engineering Department at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Dr. Tol’s research interests centered around advanced smart materials and dynamical systems with a particular focus on phononic crystals, metamaterials, and metasurfaces. Her interdisciplinary research spans applications in energy harvesting, sensing, vibration mitigation, waveguiding, and space designs. She has developed a robust research program funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the Department of Energy (DoE), and the Department of Defense Office of Naval Research (ONR). To date, Dr. Tol has successfully secured over $2.5 million in research funding for her program. She also received 2023 John F. Ullrich Education Excellence Award which recognizes sustained excellence in curricular development, instruction, and guidance at all levels, impacting the experience of undergraduate and graduate students.