College of Engineering - University of Wisconsin-Madison

ISyE - SolidWorks Workshop for Beginners
2025-10-15 18:00 - 19:45 (America/Chicago) | Engineering Centers Building, 1550 Engineering Drive, Madison, 53711
Location: Room M1053 Engineering Centers Building (ECB)

Come learn the fundamental tools for Computer-Aided Design (CAD)! This is a great chance for beginners to learn some basics in SolidWorks, something that could prove useful in your professional development later on.

Dean's Distinguished Lecture Series: Jim Thompson
2025-10-15 15:00 - 16:30 | 1413 Engineering Hall – Cheney Room, 1415 Engineering Drive, Madison, WI, 53711, United States
Join Dean Devesh Ranjan Oct. 15 for a conversation + audience Q&A with ECE alum JimThompson (BS ’85, MS ’87, PhD ’91), retired Qualcomm chief technology officer.

You’ll learn:

How engineering is evolving—and how you can keep pace with that change

How Jim’s Badger engineering experience launched his career

What contributed to his success (and what he wishes he’d known early on)

How he transitioned from engineer to tech leader

How engineering is evolving—and how you can keep pace with that change

Reception, snacks and networking to follow.

This event kicks off the Dean’s Distinguished Lecture Series—conversations with alumni whoare making a difference. We hope you’ll add your voice!

ISyE- Trivia Tuesday
2025-10-14 19:30 - 21:30 | Library Cafe & Bar, 320 N. Randall Avenue, Madison, 53711
Join your fellow students for a fun night of Trivia!

Take part in a fun night of trivia at Library Cafe & Bar! This is a great chance to bond with some fellow members and test your trivia skills!

CBE Seminar Series: Kate Galloway
2025-10-14 16:00 - 17:00 | WI
Kate GallowayMassachusetts Institute of TechnologyCambridge, MA

Engineering high-precision, dynamic genetic control systems for cell fate programming

Integrating synthetic circuitry into larger transcriptional networks to mediate predictable cellular behaviors remains a challenge within synthetic biology. In particular, the stochastic nature of transcription makes coordinating expression across multiple genetic elements difficult. Further, delivery of large genetic cargoes limits the efficiency of cellular engineering. Thus, our work is focused on the design of highly-compact genetic tools with a minimal genomic footprint. Simultaneously, we have been developing cocktails of transgenes that are capable of rapidly convert cells into neurons. The sparse and stochastic nature of reprogramming has obscured our understanding of how transcription factors drive cells to new identities. To overcome this limit, we developed a compact, portable reprogramming system that increases direct conversion of fibroblasts to motor neurons by two orders of magnitude. Low rates of direct conversion have previously limited the potential for central nervous system (CNS) applications. Using compact, optimized, polycistronic cassettes, we generate motor neurons that graft with the murine central nervous system, demonstrating the potential for in vivo therapies. In this talk, I will describe how we are building genetic controllers that can regulate transgenic cargoes and cell fate in primary cells. These genetic control systems provide an essential foundation for realizing the promise of synthetic biology in translational therapies.

ECE Discovery Panel: ECE Capstone Design Courses
2025-10-14 12:20 - 12:50 | 2317 Engineering Hall, 1415 Engineering Drive, Madison, 53711
Engineering undergraduates! Join us in 2317 Engineering Hall where you can hear all about ECE Capstone Design Courses from the faculty who teach them! All undergraduate students are welcome as Teaching Faculty Joe Krachey (ECE 453), Associate Professor Bhuvana Krishnaswamy (ECE 454), Assistant Teaching Professor Nathan Strachen (ECE 455) and Assistant Professor George Tzimpragos (ECE 554) talk all about these very special hands-on courses.

Jimmy John’s sandwiches will be served after the panel.

ECE Capstone Design Courses

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College of Engineering Alumni Tailgate
2025-10-11 00:00 - 23:59 | Mechanical Engineering Building, 1513 University Avenue, Madison, WI, 53706-1539, United States
U-Rah-Rah, It’s Back—and This Year, We’re Welcoming Dean Ranjan Home!

The College of Engineering Alumni Tailgate returns for UW Homecoming 2025—now with an extra reason to celebrate.

Join us in welcoming Dean Devesh Ranjan (MS ’05, PhD ’07) back to Madison for his first Homecoming as Dean of the College of Engineering. It’s a can’t-miss opportunity to reconnect with fellow alumni, meet college leadership, and celebrate Badger pride—just steps from Camp Randall.

Tailgate Details📍 Mechanical Engineering Atrium (1513 University Avenue, Madison WI)🕑 Begins 2.5 hours before kickoff (Game Time TBD)🏈 Badgers vs. Hawkeyes

Tickets:🎟️ $25 per person (includes food + 2 drinks)👶 Children under 5 are free!

Your tailgate ticket includes: two drink tickets for the bar, buffet of tailgate fare and assortment of non-alcoholic refreshments. Want to attend the football game? Couple your tailgate admission with your purchase of upper-deck football tickets, too. Game time to be announced soon. Tailgate will begin two and half hours before the Badgers take on Iowa.
Register Today!

With the farmers’ market, State Street, the Terrace and so much more to see and do, Madison’s the perfect place to be for a festive fall football weekend. Head over to UW-Madison’s Homecoming “hub” and plan your getaway right away!

Mechanics Seminar: Professor Rika Carlsen
2025-10-10 12:05 - 12:55 | 3M Auditorium, rm 1106 Mechanical Engineering Building, 1513 University Ave, Madison, 53711
The Mechanics Seminar Series is a weekly seminar given by campus and visiting speakers on topics across the spectrum of mechanics research (solids, fluids, and dynamics). Professor Rika Carlsen is an Associate Professor at Robert Morris University.

Understanding Generalization of Diffusion Models: Structured Data and Memorization
2025-10-10 12:00 - 13:00 | 1163 Mechanical Engineering, 1513 Engineering Dr., Madison, WI, 53706, United States
UW-ISyE looks forward to welcoming Minshuo Chen, assistant professor with the Department of Industrial Engineering & Management Sciences at Northwestern University

Diffusion models achieve state-of-the-art performance in various high-dimensional data modeling tasks. These empirical successes challenge conventional wisdom while raising critical concerns. On the one hand, in high-dimensional applications, diffusion models’ strong performance appears to circumvent the curse of dimensionality. On the other hand, memorization emerges as an unwanted byproduct, limiting creativity and raising safety and privacy issues. In this talk, we theoretically decipher these observations. The first part develops statistical learning guarantees of diffusion models for low-dimensional manifold data—an assumption aligns well with many practical datasets. We prove that diffusion models can learn data distributions at rates governed by the intrinsic dimension and curvature of the data. The second part establishes separation in memorization and generalization through the statistical learning and network approximation lens. Building on these insights, we propose a pruning-based method that reduces memorization while maintaining generation quality.

Bio: Minshuo Chen is an assistant professor with the Department of Industrial Engineering & Management Sciences at Northwestern University. He was an associate research scholar with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Princeton University from 2022 to 2024. He completed his Ph.D. from the School of Industrial and Systems Engineering at Georgia Tech, majoring in Machine Learning. His research focuses on developing principled methodologies and theoretical foundations of deep learning, with a particular interest in 1) generative models including diffusion models, 2) foundations of machine learning, such as optimization and sample efficiency, and 3) reinforcement learning.

ME 150th Celebration: Distinguished Alumni, Brewster Shaw
2025-10-09 16:00 - 17:00 | 3M Auditorium, rm 1106 Mechanical Engineering Building, 1513 University Ave, Madison, 53711
To celebrate 150 years of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Wisconsin – Madison, the Department of Mechanical Engineering will feature distinguished alumni in mechanical engineering and engineering mechanics who have made a lasting impact on the field. Brewster Shaw, who received his bachelor’s (’68) and his master’s (’69) in engineering mechanics, is a former astronaut who completed three space-shuttle missions, helped to dissect the 1986 Challenger disaster, and then held key management positions for NASA before entering the private sector. To learn more about Brewster Shaw’s experience, please join us for this installment of our ME 903: Graduate Student Lecture series. *Students, Nicholas Rienstra and Nathan Wagner, who received the 2025 Astronaut Scholar Foundation award, will also be recognized at this event.

Abstract: A great many, if not most, UW-Madison engineering students start their first year not knowing where they are headed nor what they want to do with their lives. The ensuing process of self discovery can be daunting to say the least. For most, timing (ergo luck), is a huge factor in the ultimate degree of success. It can be a significant challenge for the student to realize that now their future, and the effort and responsibility to make that future what they want it to be, lies on their shoulders.

Brewster Shaw is a graduate of the UW-Madison engineering mechanics program (BS 1968, MS 1969) who was never a “practicing” engineer, but has always appreciated the value of his engineering education in all the aspects of his professional life. The abilities to understand the technical aspects of executing “high risk” technical programs, specifically human spaceflight programs, and to ask penetrating questions of the teams involved in those executions, proved to be invaluable throughout his career.

In his speech, Brewster Shaw will demonstrate the broad applicability of a quality engineering education to show students if one has a roadmap to help guide one through the unavoidable forks in the road, better choices can be made that will increase the probability of success greatly.

Bio: Brewster Shaw has served The United States of America in aerospace with government and industry teams throughout a career spanning 43 years. During this time he was a member of The United States Air Force (USAF), The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), and The Boeing Company. He is a Vietnam combat veteran with tours in the F-100 and F-4 fighter aircraft in Vietnam and Thailand respectively.

During his USAF career, Shaw served as combat fighter pilot, test pilot, and instructor pilot. In 1978 he was selected by the USAF and NASA to the first group of Space Shuttle Astronauts. As an astronaut, Shaw flew three space shuttle missions – as pilot of STS-9 in November 1983, as commander of STS-61B in November 1985, and as commander of STS-28 in August 1989. After this mission he served at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida as Shuttle Operations Manger and the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas as Space Shuttle Program Manager. During this time Shaw retired from the USAF with rank of Colonel and joined NASA as a Senior Executive Service government employee.

Shaw retired from NASA and joined Rockwell Aerospace and Defense in Seal Beach, California in January 1996. In December that year Rockwell Aerospace and Defense was acquired by Boeing.

In his final career position Shaw served as vice president and general manager, Space Exploration, for Boeing Defense, Space & Security at The Boeing Company. In this role he was responsible for the strategic direction of Boeing’s civil space programs and support of NASA programs such as Space Shuttle, International Space Station (ISS), Checkout, Assembly & Payload Processing Services (CAPPS), Commercial Crew Development (CCDev) and future Space Launch Systems. Prior to that, he was Boeing International Space Station vice president and general manager, responsible for leading the industry team in designing, developing, testing, launching, and operating NASA’s international orbiting laboratory and Chief Operating Officer of United Space Alliance, re-sponsible for executing Space Shuttle Program operations under contract to NASA.

Over his twenty year flying career, Shaw logged 533 hours of spaceflight and more than 5,000 hours flying time in over 30 types of aircraft – including 644 hours of combat in the F-100 and F-4 aircraft. He is the recipient of many awards for serving his country in the U.S. Air Force and with NASA. He holds a Bachelor of Science degree and a Master of Science degree in engineering mechanics from the University of Wisconsin.

Shaw is married to Kathleen Anne Mueller of Madison, Wisconsin. They have three children (one deceased) and five grandchildren.

NEEP Seminar Series: Brian Wirth, University of Tennessee, Knoxville
2025-10-09 12:00 - 13:00 | WI
Thursday, October 912:00 – 1:00pm106 Engineering Research BuildingPlease contact office@neep.wisc.edu for assistance with remote participation.

Hierarchical Multiscale Modeling Framework to Predict Surface Morphology of Plasma Facing Components and Perspective on Technology Facilities & Research to Enable a Commercial Fusion IndustryHarnessing fusion energy requires materials that can cope in extreme environments, which is more challenging by a lack of representative laboratory-scale environments that mimic the harsh fusion reactor conditions. As a result, computational materials modeling is an important scientific tool to integrate research on fusion materials. For plasma facing components (PFCs) like tungsten, low-energy helium and hydrogen isotope plasma implantation is known to produce a drastic surface topology evolution referred to as fuzz. In this presentation, an atomistically informed predictive model is described. This model accurately predicts the formation and the early stage of evolution of the fuzz-like surface morphology mediated by dynamical processes that are characterized by disparate spatiotemporal scales. In our modeling framework, large-scale MD simulation results are used to parameterize constitutive equations required for the closure of the continuum-scale model for the surface morphological response of the plasma-facing material and compared to experimental measurements. Following the technical focus describing PFC surface evolution, the presentation will discuss grand challenges within fusion technology, which have been identified in recent reports from the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine and the DOE Fusion Energy Sciences Advisory Committee. The numerous engineering and technical gaps that are at low technological readiness levels will be described, followed by a perspective on the facilities and research needed to enable a commercial fusion industry.

Brian WirthBrian Wirth is Department Head and Governor’s Chair Professor of Computational Nuclear Engineering in the Department of Nuclear Engineering at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville and Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Professor Wirth’s research investigates the performance of nuclear fuels, structural materials and plasma facing components in nuclear fission and fusion environments, utilizing computational materials modeling complemented by experimental investigation. Brian received a BS in nuclear engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology in 1992 and a PhD in mechanical engineering from the University of California, Santa Barbara in 1998. Dr. Wirth spent four years at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. In 2002 he joined the faculty at the University of California, Berkeley as an Assistant Professor of Nuclear Engineering and was promoted to Associate Professor in 2006. In 2010, he moved to the University of Tennessee as a UTK-ORNL Governor’s Chair Professor. He has received many awards, including the 2014 U.S. Department of Energy Ernest O. Lawrence Award in Energy Science and Innovation, the 2016 Mishima Award from the American Nuclear Society for outstanding work in nuclear fuels and materials research and the 2003 Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE). Dr. Wirth is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS, 2016 Fellow, Physics Section) and the American Nuclear Society (ANS, 2017 Fellow).

Biomedical Engineering Society Annual Meeting
2025-10-08 18:00 - 2025-10-11 14:30 | San Diego Convention Center, 11 Harbor Dr, San Diego, California, 92101, United States
We will be at booth 503 at the 2025 BMES Annual Meeting in San Diego, California.

Exhibitor Hours:

October 8: 6-7:30pm

October 9: 8-11am and 12:15-4:30pm

October 10: 8-11am and 12:15-4:30pm

October 11: 10am-2:30pm

Ask an expert: The Intersection of Data, AI and Healthcare
2025-10-08 12:00 - 12:50 | 1610 Engineering Hall, 1415 Engineering Drive, Madison, 53706
All students, staff and faculty are invited as the Departments of Industrial & Systems Engineering (ISyE), and Electrical & Computer Engineering (ECE) welcome three alumni experts in the healthcare tech industry. This virtual panel, with technical and leadership experience from Tempus Labs, NVIDIA, GE Healthcare, UW Hospital, HTD Health, GH Labs, Microsoft, and more, will be moderated by ISyE Professor Laura Albert. Join us to learn more about the field of data engineering and AI within the healthcare industry and what the future may hold in this dynamic area. Plus, hear from these Badgers about why they chose their career paths and what they have learned along the way.

Jimmy John’s sandwiches will be provided! No registration required.

Meet our panelists:

Erkin Otles (BSIE’11, MSIE’16)Resident Physician, UW Hospital;AI Practice Lead, HTD Health

Ranjani Ramamurthy (MSEE’96)Vice President, GH Labs;Advisor & Member, Indian Cancer Genome Atlas;Advisor, Dandelion Health and Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center

Chris Scotto DiVetta (BSCMPE’06)SVP & General Manager of AI Applications, Tempus Labs, Inc.

CBE Seminar Series: Phil Christopher
2025-10-07 16:00 - 17:00 | WI
Phil ChristopherUniversity of California, Santa BarbaraSanta Barbara, CA

Catalyst deactivation: Mechanisms, stability by design, and pathways to machine-learned models

Supported metal catalysts are used ubiquitously in industrial applications for energy conversion, material/chemical manufacturing, and pollution mitigation. Fundamental research often focuses on elucidating structure-function relationships that connect active site structures and compositions to their reactivities. Relationships that connect active site structure to stability are less well developed. Such insights require appreciation of dynamic structure changes, longer term experimentation, and reactors characterized by gradients in temperatures and chemical potentials. I will highlight two recent research efforts studying the deactivation of supported metal catalysts. First, I will discuss the deactivation of supported coinage (Cu and Ag) metal catalysts which occurs via sintering due to the low melting points of these metals. We found that the addition of < 1:100 mol fraction of certain dopant metals results in drastic stability enhancement under methanol synthesis reaction conditions A model was developed that proposes the role of dopants as local stabilizers of highly mobile metal atoms. Secondly, I will discuss the deactivation of Rh/TiO2 catalysts under CO2 hydrogenation conditions. Mechanistic studies suggest that deactivation occurs through competing mechanisms as a function of catalyst composition and reaction conditions, motivating the use experimentally trained machine learnt models to predict deactivation behavior. A round robin style experimental campaign was performed across 4 institutions to generate data for this effort. I will discuss our learnings in terms of the drivers of catalyst deactivation and experimental uncertainty in studies of catalyst deactivation.

BME Seminar Series: From Campus to Career: Maximizing Experiences for Industry Readiness
2025-10-06 12:00 - 13:00 | 1003 (Tong Auditorium) Engineering Centers Building, 1550 Engineering Drive, Madison, WI, 53706, United States
Abstract: Universities are organized primarily by departments, but industry is organized by function: research, design, regulatory, quality assurance, sales, marketing. Having some knowledge of this structure ahead of time will help you select and approach classes in ways more likely to have you end up where you want to be.Fortunately, the UW-Madison also has many opportunities that let you “try on” an industrial career ahead of time. These opportunities vary in duration from hours to months. As you start to invest in these channels, you will be more likely to benefit from the serendipity that the breath of expertise present at UW-Madison naturally provides.This seminar will feature three individuals in a conversational format who will discuss how they used these channels to supplement their coursework and research to build industrial success. While all three of these individuals eventually earned PhDs, the topics and approaches discussed are equally applicable to MS students.

Speakers (L to R):Professor Chris Brace, PhD; UW BME Vice Chair; Co-founder, NeuWave MedicalJustin Koepsel, PhD, MBA; UW BME MS’08, PhD’12; Senior Director of Commercial Operations at Catalent BiologicsTom Lilieholm, PhD’24; Co-founder and Director of Neuroimaging ImgGyd

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Mechanics Seminar: Tanmoy Chatterjee
2025-10-03 12:05 - 12:55 | 3M Auditorium, rm 1106 Mechanical Engineering Building, 1513 University Ave, Madison, 53711
The Mechanics Seminar Series is a weekly seminar given by campus and visiting speakers on topics across the spectrum of mechanics research (solids, fluids, and dynamics). Tanmoy Chatterjee is the Lead Research Engineer in Aerodynamics at GE Research Inc.

Presentation Title: From Turbulence to Turbines: Exascale CFD in Wind Energy

Abstract: Wind energy is rapidly expanding in scale, with individual turbines now exceeding 100-meter blades and offshore farms stretching tens of kilometers. Yet, predicting their performance and more critically reliability remains a grand challenge of fluid mechanics, spanning phenomena from centimeter-scale blade boundary layers to kilometer-scale atmospheric flows. This talk explores how exascale computational fluid dynamics (CFD) is transforming our ability to model and design wind energy systems across these scales. I will discuss recent advances in high-fidelity, turbulent fluid–structure interaction simulations, and their integration with the Department of Energy’s ExaWind project. Specific examples will include simulations of coastal low-level jets (LLJs) driving wind farm variability, and the development of data-driven dynamic stall models for next-generation turbine blades. Together, these efforts highlight how exascale CFD is reshaping our understanding of turbulence, turbines, and wind farms — and accelerating innovation in the renewable energy industry.

Bio: Tanmoy Chatterjee is a Lead Research Engineer in Advanced Simulations and Methods at the GE Vernova Advanced Research Center. Prior to joining GE, he was a postdoctoral researcher at Argonne National Laboratory, where he developed exascale CFD models using spectral codes for internal combustion engine simulations. He earned his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from Arizona State University, focusing on turbulence–turbine interactions in large wind farms.

At GE Vernova, Dr. Chatterjee has led the development of high-fidelity exascale CFD–FSI simulations of wind farms and turbine blade-level turbulence, as well as data-driven reduced-order models for blade vibrations in the regimes of stall-induced and vortex-induced vibrations (SIV/VIV). He has also contributed to advanced controller strategies for mitigating turbine loads under unconventional wind conditions. In addition to his technical contributions, Dr. Chatterjee has successfully led several GE-internal and government-funded research initiatives, including projects supporting the DOE-WETO RAAW campaign in collaboration with national laboratories and academic partners.

Strong duals for mixed integer programs.
2025-10-03 12:00 - 13:00 | 1163 Mechanical Engineering, 1513 Engineering Dr., Madison, WI, 53706, United States
UW-ISyE looks forward to welcoming Dr. Santanu Dey, Professor at H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology.

We develop two general-purpose strong dual formulations for binary MINLPs, motivated by sensitivity analysis and distributed computation. For mixed binary quadratic programs (MBQPs), we show that the copositive dual of Burer’s completely positive reformulation has no duality gap when the feasible region is bounded or the objective is convex. Since the right-hand side of the original MBQP appears only in the dual’s objective, this formulation enables sensitivity analysis. For nearly decomposable nonlinear mixed binary programs, we propose a hierarchy of relaxations that preserve decomposability. The first level coincides with the classical Lagrangian relaxation, while higher levels yield progressively tighter bounds, culminating in a strong dual. We analyze the quality of these bounds for various types of MILPs. This is joint work with Diego Cifuentes and Jingye Xu.

Bio: Santanu S. Dey is an Anderson-Interface professor and director of doctorial recruiting and admissions in the H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology. Dr. Dey’s research interests are in the area of non-convex optimization, and in particular mixed integer linear and nonlinear programming. His research is partly motivated by applications of non-convex optimization problems arising in areas such as electrical power engineering, process engineering, civil engineering, logistics, and statistics. He currently serves on the editorial board of Mathematical Programming A, Mathematics of Operations Research and SIAM Journal on Optimization. He has previously served as an area editor for Mathematical Programming C and associate editor of INFORMS Journal on Computing. He has won the INFORMS Nicholson student paper competition, IBM Faculty Award, the Class of 1969 Teaching Fellow at Georgia Tech, the NSF CAREER award, the INFORMS Energy Natural Resources and Environment best paper award, and the INFORMS optimization society Balas Prize.

ME 903 Graduate Seminar: Professor Suo Yang
2025-10-02 16:00 - 17:00 | 3M Auditorium, rm 1106 Mechanical Engineering Building, 1513 University Ave, Madison, 53711
The ME 903: Graduate Student Lecture Series features campus and visiting speakers who present on a variety of research topics in the field of mechanical engineering. Professor Suo Yang is a professor at the University of Minnesota.

Presentation title: Multi-Physics Modeling for Future Aerospace Propulsion and Energy

Abstract: In the development of future aerospace propulsion and energy systems, the pursuit of high efficiency, high speed, low emission, and low noise is pushing the systems to operate at extreme conditions. These conditions and associated emerging technologies often introduce complicated multi-scale physics, bringing new challenges to modeling and simulation in terms of both fidelity and computational cost. In this presentation, I will mainly talk about two examples of such multi-physics modeling from our works: (1) Plasma assisted combustion (PAC) is a promising technology to enable ultra-fast ignition and stable combustion using low-reactivity fuels (e.g., ammonia for decarbonization, and low-cetane sustainable/synthetic aviation fuels) or at extreme conditions (e.g., high-speed flows in scramjets for hypersonic propulsion). We developed a series of 0D-3D PAC models with unprecedented predictivity, unraveled the mechanisms of simultaneous ignition acceleration and NOx emission reduction by non-equilibrium plasma in ammonia combustion, and investigated the influence of discharge pulsing frequency, plasma streamer evolution, inter-electrode gap distance, igniter placement, and turbulence on ignition performance. (2) Advanced liquid-fueled rocket and gas-turbine jet engines (based on deflagration or detonation) operate at high pressures to achieve high efficiency and high energy density. At such conditions, the supercritical liquid-like fuel often goes through transcritical multi-component phase transition upon mixing with the oxidizer stream or colliding with detonation/shock waves. We developed a series of computationally efficient and robust multiphase flow models based on the first-principled real-fluid vapor-liquid equilibrium (VLE) theory to predict high-pressure multi-component phase transition, and investigated its interactions with mixing, combustion, detonation, (hypersonic) shocks, and expansion waves.

Bio: Dr. Suo Yang is an Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Minnesota. During 2017-2018, He was a Postdoctoral Research Associate in Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering at Princeton University. Dr. Yang received his Ph.D. (2017) and M.S. (2014) degrees in Aerospace Engineering, and another M.S. degree in Computational Science & Engineering (2015), all from the Georgia Institute of Technology. He received a B.S. degree in Mathematics & Applied Mathematics from Zhejiang University in 2011. Dr. Yang’s research focuses on the modeling and simulation of turbulent reacting & multiphase flows, including combustion, non-equilibrium plasma, particulate & multiphase flows, and hypersonics, with applications in aerospace propulsion & energy systems. He is an awardee of the 2021 DARPA Young Faculty Award (YFA), 2022 ONR Young Investigator (YIP) Award, 2023 DARPA Director’s Fellowship Award, and 2024 AFOSR Young Investigator (YIP) Award. Dr. Yang has authored nearly 100 journal articles and refereed conference papers, in which he received 5 Editor’s Pick or Featured Article awards from Physics of Fluids and Combustion and Flame. Dr. Yang is a Senior Member of AIAA and a member of 3 AIAA Technical Committees. He has served as a Technical Discipline Chair or Deputy Chair 5 times for AIAA SciTech Forums. He also actively serves as a reviewer for many top-tier journals for which he received 4 Outstanding Reviewer Awards.

NEEP Seminar Series: David Andersson, Los Alamos National Laboratory
2025-10-02 12:00 - 13:00 | WI
Thursday, October 212:00 – 1:00pm106 Engineering Research BuildingPlease contact office@neep.wisc.edu for assistance with remote participation.

Overview of the DOE NEAMS program and review of multi-scale simulations to inform nuclear fuel performance modelsThis presentation will first introduce the Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) program, which develops predictive modeling and simulation tools to support the design, development, licensing, and operation of nuclear reactors. NEAMS activities span Light Water Reactors (LWRs), new LWR concepts, and next-generation systems such as High Temperature Gas Reactors, Fluoride Salt-cooled Reactors, Liquid Metal Fast Reactors, Molten Salt Reactors, and Micro-Reactors. Research is organized into five Technical Areas: Fuel Performance, Thermal Fluids, Reactor Physics, Structural Materials & Chemistry, and Multiphysics Applications. Selected accomplishments from each area will be highlighted.

The second part of the talk will focus on multi-scale simulations for nuclear fuel performance, with examples for uranium oxide in LWRs and, if time permits, other fuel types. A key element is understanding the thermodynamic and kinetic properties of point defects, which strongly influence creep, fission gas release, swelling, densification, and thermal conductivity. Density functional theory (DFT) enables prediction of defect properties and provides a foundation for mechanism-based, engineering-scale fuel performance codes.

Current applications of DFT to UO2 will be presented, including methods that incorporate dispersion corrections, spin–orbit interactions, and noncollinear magnetism. A point defect model informed by DFT energies and vibrational entropies predicts defect concentrations in UO2±x, validated against experimental data for deviation from stoichiometry and self-diffusion coefficients. The cluster dynamics code Centipede further connects defect behavior to in-reactor performance by modeling production, interactions, clustering, and kinetics under irradiation, with implications for fission gas behavior, fuel fragmentation and creep. The importance of these properties in extending fuel burnup limits and the role of uncertainty quantification in achieving qualification will be discussed. Similar approaches for other nuclear fuels, including UN, TRISO, and molten salts, will also be briefly mentioned.

David Andersson, Los Alamos National LaboratoryDavid Andersson is the National Technical Director (NTD) of the Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) program and the Deputy Group Leader of MST-8: Materials Science in Radiation and Dynamics Extremes. He joined LANL in 2007 as a Glenn T. Seaborg postdoc and was converted to technical staff member in 2009. Through the years he has made contributions to research on nuclear fuels (solids as well as molten salts) for NEAMS and other nuclear energy projects. Before becoming the NEAMS NTD in 2024, he was the Deputy National Technical Director for the Advanced Materials and Manufacturing Technologies (AMMT) program. David received his PhD in Materials Science and Engineering from the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), Stockholm, Sweden. He was awarded the American Nuclear Society Mishima Award in 2023 for advancing understanding of nuclear fuel performance through fundamental studies of defect properties and their integration in performance models.

Exact Sciences Information Session
2025-10-01 16:30 - 17:15 | WI
Curious about what it takes to land an internship at Exact Sciences? Join this exclusive insider session where their University Relations and Recruiting team will share practical tips and insights to help you stand out as a candidate.

During this event, you’ll:

Learn about upcoming internship opportunities at Exact Sciences

Get expert advice on how to prepare a strong resume

Gain insider tips for succeeding in interviews

Have the chance to ask questions directly to our team

Whether you’re just starting to explore internships or ready to apply, this session will give you the tools and confidence to put your best foot forward.

Register now on Handshake

Learn more here.

Grad School Virtual Info Session
2025-10-01 09:00 - 10:00 | WI
Join us to learn more about graduate school with the Department of Mechanical Engineering at UW-Madison! We will be hosting virtual sessions on the first Wednesday of every month from June through December from 9:00-10:00am CST. Please RSVP here.

Those who attend will learn more about:

Mechanical Engineering Department programs overview (including department research overview)

Research MS and PhD program information

Professional (course-only) based MS program information

Admissions Information

Faculty & Graduate Student Panel

Q&A

Much More!

Questions? Email us at dept@me.engr.wisc.edu

CBE Seminar Series: Hal Alper
2025-09-30 16:00 - 17:00 | WI
Hal S. AlperProfessor & Cockrell Family Regents Chair in EngineeringDepartment of Chemical EngineeringUniversity of Texas-AustinAustin, TX

Beyond the test-tube: metabolic engineering for next-generation applications

Advances in metabolic engineering and synthetic biology can enable microbes to produce nearly any organic molecule of interest—from biofuels to biopolymers to pharmaceuticals. While this approach has fueled the industrial biotechnology, new challenges arise for microbe engineering when considering non-conventional settings. This talk will highlight several unique application areas for metabolic engineering. First, the use of engineered biology for the degradation of waste products (including plastics and other hydrophobic substrates) will be discussed considering the unique challenges required to consume these non-carbohydrate substrates. Second, the use of a printable hydrogel system for encapsulating cells will be discussed as a means for both portable cultivation of engineered microbial systems as well as for responsive theranostics. Third, the engineering of microbial factories for space environments will be discussed. Robust “space-ready” organisms require an understanding of how cells respond to the unique challenges and stressors of space including microgravity, radiation, and desiccation. Together, these efforts demonstrate how to deploy metabolically engineered cells outside of traditional sugar-based bioreactor settings.

ECE Discovery Panel: Machine Learning & Artificial Intelligence
2025-09-30 12:20 - 12:50 | 2317 Engineering Hall, 1415 Engineering Drive, Madison, 53711
Engineering undergraduates! Join us in 2317 Engineering Hall as faculty members explore the technical area of Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence! All undergraduate students are welcome as Associate Professor Kangwook Lee, Assistant Professor Grigorios Chrysos, and Assistant Professor Ramya Korlakai Vinayak talk about application ideas, advanced course electives in this area, and future job opportunities. It’s a great place to ask your questions about classes and career paths in this growing ECE field.

Jimmy John’s sandwiches will be served after the panel.

Kangwook Lee

Grigorios Chrysos

Ramya Korlakai Vinayak

BME Seminar Series: Hua Wang, PhD
2025-09-29 12:00 - 13:00 | 1003 (Tong Auditorium) Engineering Centers Building, 1550 Engineering Drive, Madison, WI, 53706, United States
Molecular to Systemic Engineering of Immune Cells for Robust Immunotherapy

Hua Wang, PhDAssociate ProfessorDepartment of Materials Science and EngineeringUniversity of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Abstract:Immunotherapy has achieved significant clinical progress for the treatment of cancer and other diseases over the past decade, but challenges, including low patient responses, off-target side effects, and poor efficacy against solid tumors and autoimmune disorders, remain. One of our research interests is to understand how immune cells (e.g., dendritic cells (DCs)) can be manipulated or engineered using chemistry, material, and chemical biology approaches, in order to develop effective therapies for cancer and other diseases. In this talk, I will present our recent efforts in molecular, systemic, and in situ engineering of DCs and further development of robust cancer vaccines. These include molecules and polymers that can interact with DC membrane and thus activate DCs, and macroporous materials that can actively recruit and program DCs in situ. I will then conclude my talk with several short stories along the line of metabolic glycan labeling, another key technology in my lab, regarding how we made it possible to precisely modulate cells that are historically challenging to engineer.

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ISyE - Lakeshore Nature Preserve Volunteering
2025-09-28 12:30 - 14:30 | Lakeshore Nature Preserve, Frautcshi Point, Lake Mendota Drive, Madison, 53711
Come help clean up the Lakeshore Nature Preserve! This is a great chance to give back to your campus and local community, while bonding with fellow students. This event is being organized by the UW-Madison IISE student chapter.

More information:

Meet at the Frautschi Point parking lot on Lake Mendota Drive. It is on the free 80 bus route.

Volunteers are required to wear long pants and closed-toe shoes. We highly recommend long-sleeve shirts, a hat, sunscreen, and insect repellent.

We will provide tools and work gloves.

Volunteers will assist in ecological restoration activities. We may weed, cut invasive plants, and/or collect native seeds.

Work will be performed off-trail on uneven ground and may require bending, stooping, and lifting.

Please visit https://www.iiseuwmadison.com to sign up via Flare.

College of Engineering Hackathon/Makerthon
2025-09-26 16:30 - 2025-09-27 18:00 | UW-Madison Design Innovation Lab, Wendt Commons, 215 N. Randall Ave, Madison, 53715
The inaugural IoT Hacker-and-Makerthon at UW–Madison is here! In just 24 hours, you and your team will tackle real-world challenges provided by industry partners Plexus and Accuray. Use your skills from class, connect with their engineers, and bring your creativity to life – whether it’s in IoT, robotics, or beyond. There are no limits to what you can build! Mentors will be available around the clock to support you.

In addition to developing your solution, you will also have the opportunity to sharpen your presentation skills. By the end of the event, you will be ready to showcase your project – and maybe even take home a cash prize!

And don’t worry about food or drinks: we’ve got you covered throughout the entire event. Come hungry, be curious, and stay inspired!

Brought to you by the Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering and the Grainger Engineering Design Innovation Laboratory.

ALL students are welcome and encouraged to participate!

Register Now!

FAQs

What does “around the clock” mean? Is this a 24-hour event?

The event space will close around 9pm and we will start around 9am in the morning. But you are free to work on the challenges throughout the night.

When is the deadline to sign up?

The deadline to sign up is Friday, Septebmer 26th, 10:00 am.

How many meals are served throughout the event?

There will be 4 meals: dinner on Friday, and breakfast, lunch and dinner on Saturday.

Who are the judges, and will they (or any other professional engineers for on hand throught the event for feedback?

Judges will be UW researchers as well as professional engineers from Accuray and Plexus, who will be available either on-site of remotely throughout the event.

Is the cash prize only for 1st place?

Cash prizes are avilable for up to 10 teams.

Midwest Mechanics Seminar: Professor Daniel Chung
2025-09-26 12:05 - 12:55 | 3M Auditorium, rm 1106 Mechanical Engineering Building, 1513 University Ave, Madison, 53711
The Mechanics Seminar Series is a weekly seminar given by campus and visiting speakers on topics across the spectrum of mechanics research (solids, fluids, and dynamics). Professor Daniel Chung is an Associate Professor at The University of Melbourne.

Presentation Title: Fluid mechanics of riblets drag reduction

Abstract: Riblets are a surface texture composed of tiny ribs applied on aircraft skin to reduce drag, which saves on fuel, increases the payload and extends the range. To the fast-moving turbulent air that flows over it, riblets turn out to be smoother, generating less skin friction, than a perfectly flat surface. However, riblet performance is highly sensitive to their cross-sectional shape and features, which is bad news because the micron-sized ribs, imperceptible to the naked eye and challenging to measure even with precision instruments, are impossible to manufacture and maintain perfectly. Thus, accurate tolerancing, not only for manufacture but also for lifetime wear planning and monitoring, is key to this technology, requiring predictive capability of the kind that derives from advances in basic understanding. In this regard, I will present some of the progress we have made in the last few years, building on decades of research, on the fluid mechanics of turbulence over riblet surfaces.

The support of the Australian Research Council, Cooperative Research Australia and the U.S. Air Force Office of Scientific Research FA2386-23-1-4071 is gratefully acknowledged.

Bio: Daniel is an associate professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Melbourne. He obtained his bachelor’s degree in engineering and computer science from the University of Melbourne in 2003, and his PhD in aeronautics from Caltech in 2009. He was a postdoc at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory before joining the University of Melbourne in 2012. Daniel’s research uses computational fluid dynamics, where he tries to distil turbulent flows into simplified problems and to build physics-based models for prediction. Recently, he has been interested in understanding and controlling turbulent flow and thermal convection over rough surfaces, riblets and moving wavy surfaces.

Optimization, ML and AI in Operations Management
2025-09-26 12:00 - 13:00 | 1163 Mechanical Engineering, 1513 Engineering Dr., Madison, WI, 53706, United States
UW-ISyE looks forward to welcoming Dr. Georgia Perakis, Professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management.

Data-driven decision-making has garnered a growing interest due to the increase in data availability in recent years. With that growth many opportunities as well as challenges arise. Optimization, Machine Learning (ML) and more generally, AI play and can play even more an important role to address important challenges in a variety of Operations Management applications. In this talk, we will discuss some of these applications and will highlight the importance and challenges of integrating optimization with ML in data-driven decision-making. We will also discuss some concrete examples of these synergies in pricing and healthcare. As a result, we will also discuss how we can optimize over already trained objective functions that arise from neural network models in order to recommend better decisions.

Bio: Georgia Perakis is the William F. Pounds Professor and a Professor of Operations Management, Operations Research & Statistics at the MIT Sloan School of Management. She is also serving as co-director of the Operations Research Center. On July 1 she started her sabbatical at Harvard Business School where she is spending the year as a Visiting Scholar. For the past year and a half, she served as the John C Head III Dean (Interim) at MIT Sloan and before that, she served as an Associate Dean for Social and Ethical Responsibility in Computing (SERC) in the Schwarzman College of Computing and MIT Sloan. Her research has received many awards and focuses on analytics/AI, in particular, in the intersection of optimization and machine learning with applications in pricing, revenue management, supply chain, sustainability and healthcare among others. She received the PECASE Award from the Office of the President on Science and Technology. In 2016, she was elected as an INFORMS Fellow, and in 2021 as Distinguished MSOM Fellow.

Perakis has passion for supervising PhD, masters, and undergraduate students, having graduated 34 PhD and 63 master’s students. She has received numerous awards for teaching including the Graduate Student Council Teaching Award (2002), the Samuel M. Seegal Award (2012), the Jamieson Prize for excellence in Teaching (2014), the Teacher of the Year Award (2017) and the Outstanding Teaching Award (2024) at MIT Sloan. Perakis is currently the Editor in Chief of the M&SOM journal and has served on the editorial board at a number of other journals. She holds a BS in mathematics from the University of Athens as well as an MS in applied mathematics and a PhD in applied mathematics from Brown University.

ME 150th Celebration: Distinguished Alumni, Jim Berbee
2025-09-25 16:00 - 17:00 | 3M Auditorium, rm 1106 Mechanical Engineering Building, 1513 University Ave, Madison, 53711
To celebrate 150 years of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Wisconsin – Madison, the Department of Mechanical Engineering will feature distinguished alumni in mechanical engineering and engineering mechanics who have made a lasting impact on the field. Jim Berbee, who received his bachelor’s (’85) and his master’s (’87) in mechanical engineering, started his career as an IBM system engineer and then founded Berbee Information Networks Corporation. After selling his company, Dr. Berbee earned his doctor of medicine and now serves as a clinical assistant professor at the UW School of Medicine and Public Health. To learn more about Jim Berbee’s experience, please join us for this installment of our ME 903: Graduate Student Lecture series.

Presentation title: Is it a good thing, or a bad thing?

Bio: After graduating from the University of Wisconsin–Madison with degrees in mechanical engineering and business, Dr. Berbee started his career as an IBM system engineer where he specialized in system interoperability. He then founded Berbee Information Networks Corporation, which he sold to the public company CDW. He went on to earn his medical degree at Stanford University School of Medicine.

Dr. Berbee joined the Department of Emergency Medicine at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine & Public Health after completing his emergency medicine residency at the University of Wisconsin Hospital and Clinics. He served as an attending physician at the UW, the VA and on MedFlight, the UW critical transport helicopter service. He also attended patients at the Rice Lake emergency department in northern Wisconsin.

Dr. Berbee serves as a Trustee of the Wisconsin Alumni Research Association (WARF, known for the medication Warfarin) and is on the board of directors of Madison Gas and Electric (MGEE). He was the Chair of WARF from 2018-2024. He is an active venture investor in medicine and technology and holds patents related to digital otoscopy. He is the founder and chair of WiscMed, a company that designs and markets the Wispr digital otoscope.

He supports human health and welfare projects through the BerbeeWalsh Foundation. He is the event founder of the Berbee Derby Thanksgiving Day 10k RUN & 5k RUN/WALK whose proceeds support technology education. He holds an airline transport pilot (ATP) license, and type ratings in Cessna Citation jets. In addition, he has rotor and float plane endorsements.

His primary home is in British Columbia, Canada which he shares with Maple, his spaniel.

NEEP Seminar Series: Todd Allen, University of Michigan
2025-09-25 12:00 - 13:00 | WI
Thursday, September 2512:00 – 1:00pm106 Engineering Research BuildingPlease contact office@neep.wisc.edu for assistance with remote participation.

Net zero economy: What’s Up With That (and Nuclear)?Transitioning to a net-zero economy is complex and involves developing new technologies (including nuclear energy), determining pathways to expand into wider use of these technologies, and determining the decision-making processes and policy choices to optimize success. This talk will frame this transition for nuclear energy within three concepts, Energy Technology Complexity, System-informed Decision-Making, and Community-appropriate Capacity Expansion, that are the key considerations through which optimal transitions can be made.

Todd AllenDr. Todd Allen is Professor at the University of Michigan and a Senior Fellow at Third Way, a DC base Think Tank, supporting their Climate & Energy Portfolio. He is the Founding Director of the Fastest Path to Zero Initiative, aimed at identifying the combined technologies and social acceptance that moves towards decarbonized systems. He is also the Co-Director of the University of Michigan’s hydrogen initiative, MI Hydrogen. He was the Deputy Director for Science and Technology at the Idaho National Laboratory from January 2013 through January 2016. Prior to INL he was a Professor in the Engineering Physics Department at the University of Wisconsin, a position held from September 2003 through December 2012 and again from January 2016-December 2018. From March 2008-December 2012, he was concurrently the Scientific Director of the Advanced Test Reactor National Scientific User Facility at INL. Prior to joining the University of Wisconsin, he was a Nuclear Engineer at Argonne National Laboratory-West in Idaho Falls. His Doctoral Degree is in Nuclear Engineering from the University of Michigan (1997) and his Bachelor’s Degree in Nuclear Engineering is from Northwestern University (1984). Prior to graduate work, he was an officer in the United States Navy Nuclear Power Program.

The Next Era: A Reception with Dean Ranjan
2025-09-24 18:00 - 20:00 | 300 N Washington Ave, Minneapolis, MN 55401, 300 N Washington Ave,, Minneapolis, Wisconsin, 55401, United States
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You’re invited to join us for a special evening as we welcome Devesh Ranjan (MS ’05, PhD ’07), the new Grainger Dean of the College of Engineering, for a casual reception with fellow alumni in the Twin Cities area.

This is a wonderful opportunity to reconnect with the College, engage in meaningful conversations with Dean Ranjan, and network with fellow engineering alumni living and working in the region. Come celebrate the exciting future of the College of Engineering and be part of this growing community of innovators and leaders.Date: September 24, 2025Time: 6:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m. (featuring brief remarks and Q+A)Location: The Hewing Hotel(300 N Washington Ave, Minneapolis, MN 55401)

Heavy appetizers and refreshments will be served. Street parking available.

Register Here

We look forward to extending a warm Wisconsin welcome to Dean Ranjan and help shape the future of engineering—together.

This event is free to attend.
