College of Engineering - University of Wisconsin-Madison

ECE Discovery Panel: ECE Named BS Degree Options
2025-10-28 12:20 - 12:50 (America/Chicago) | 2317 Engineering Hall, 1415 Engineering Drive, Madison, 53711
Join us as ECE Teaching Faculty Srdjan Milicic, Assistant Teaching Professor Setareh Behroozi, and Assistant Teaching Professor Eduardo R. Arvelo talk about the four named BS degree options within ECE. Degree options prepare students for careers in electrical or computer engineering with an emphasis on a specific area of the field. Learn more about how to declare this option, what courses to choose within your 120-credit curriculum, and what career opportunities open up with this degree distinction.Electrical Engineering: Semiconductor Engineering, BS

Computer Engineering: Semiconductor Engineering, BS

Electrical Engineering: Machine Learning and Data Science, BS

Computer Engineering: Machine Learning and Data Science, BS

Jimmy John’s sandwiches will be provided!

Srdjan Milicic

Setareh Behroozi

Eduardo R. Arvelo

BME Seminar Series: Keefe Manning, PhD
2025-10-27 12:00 - 13:00 | 1003 (Tong Auditorium) Engineering Centers Building, 1550 Engineering Drive, Madison, WI, 53706, United States
Predicting Thrombus Formation, Deformation, and Embolization: A Look at Devices, Stroke, and Deep Vein Thrombosis

Keefe Manning, PhDProfessor of Biomedical Engineering and SurgeryDepartment of Biomedical EngineeringPennsylvania State University

Abstract:Thrombosis remains a significant clinical issue manifesting in heart attacks and strokes but also challenges the success of cardiovascular devices. Given the complex process associated with thrombosis, developing accurate computational models is difficult as validation needs to occur over a range of flow and surface interactions and at different temporal and spatial scales. Thrombi are particularly interesting because of their inherent heterogeneity. Leveraging canonical experiments that acquire a breadth of data will be crucial to validate any computational model, but do these experiments accurately represent how thrombi form, deform, and embolize in the context of devices, stroke, and deep vein thrombosis? This presentation will cover the development and experimental validation of our computational models in these areas and the complications posed with blood experiments.

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ISyE - Student tour, Pro-Active Engineering
2025-10-24 14:30 - 15:30
Join the IISE student chapter as they tour the Pro-Active Engineering Facility in nearby Sun Prairie. This is a great opportunity to see a manufacturing facility in action and learn how it works, courtesy of one of our sponsors.

Meet outside the South doors (Engineering Drive side) of Mechanical Engineering building.

Sign up here

ME/EMA Advising Day
2025-10-24 09:00 - 16:00 | Mechanical Engineering Building – Atrium, 1415 Engineering Drive, Madison, 53711
As part of an effort to provide quality advising for Mechanical Engineering and Engineering Mechanics students, we have designated Friday, October 24, 2025 as the Dept. of Mechanical Engineering Advising Day. This day will be dedicated to curriculum and holistic advising for ME/EMA undergraduate students through conversations with academic and faculty advisors.

ISyE - PhD Virtual Info Session
2025-10-24 09:00 - 12:00
Considering a PhD program in Industrial Engineering? This event is for you!

The UW-Madison Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering (ISyE) is hosting a virtual information session for prospective PhD students. If you’re considering applying to this prestigious program, please register by submitting the following information. Registration will close at midnight on Friday, October 10, 2025.

Register Now

Registrants will be sent a ZOOM link via email.

ISyE - Interactive Data Analytics Workshop
2025-10-23 16:00 - 18:00 | 2065 Mechanical Engineering, 1513 University Avenue, Madison, Wisconsin, 53706
2065 Mechanical Engineering

Curious how design and data come together?

Join the HFES student chapter for an Interactive Data Analytics Workshop — a hands-on dive into visual analytics, R-based data exploration, and human-centered visualization.

RSVP

Mechanical Engineering Scholarship Night
2025-10-23 16:00 - 18:00 | Mechanical Engineering Building – Atrium, 1415 Engineering Drive, Madison, 53711
This invite-only event brings together students, their families, and scholarship supporters to award scholarships to Mechanical Engineering and Engineering Mechanics students who have distinguished themselves through academic success, curiosity in research, and leadership on and off campus. Contact Kassi Akers kakers2@wisc.edu or Caitlin Scott cscott8@wisc.edu with any questions.

CBE Seminar Series: Önder Metin
2025-10-21 16:00 - 17:00
Önder MetinCollege of Sciences, Koç UniversityIstanbul, Türkiye

Rational Design of Nano(photo)Catalysts for Green and Sustainable Chemical Conversions

Catalysts are central to numerous industrial processes, including fuel synthesis, polymer production, and pharmaceutical manufacturing, enabling reactions to proceed under milder conditions, with lower energy requirements, and with better selectivity by minimizing undesirable byproducts. Over the last quarter century, transition metal nanoparticles (NPs) have emerged as highly effective catalysts due to their large surface-to-volume ratio and the enhanced reactivity of surface atoms compared to bulk metals. These properties have enabled the rapid advancement of nanocatalysis, which often offers superior performance compared to traditional homogeneous and heterogeneous catalysts. Bimetallic NPs, either alloys or core-shell structures, are particularly important, as they often exhibit enhanced catalytic activity, selectivity, and stability due to synergistic interactions between two-distinct component metals. This approach is particularly useful for combining noble and non-noble metals, reducing cost without sacrificing efficiency.

In parallel, aligning catalytic strategies with green chemistry principles has motivated efforts to integrate photocatalysts capable of harvesting a broad spectrum of the solar spectrum. Such systems offer a sustainable route to more efficient and cost-effective chemical transformations. While semiconductor-based photocatalysts have long been under investigation, their widespread application is limited by challenges such as poor band-edge alignment with target reactions and rapid recombination of photogenerated charge carriers, both of which significantly reduce photocatalytic efficiency.

In this talk, I will highlight our rational approach to synthesizing monodisperse monometallic and bimetallic NPs, including alloy and core-shell structures supported on two-dimensional materials such as high-surface-area carbon or reduced graphene oxide (rGO) and mesoporous graphitic carbon nitride (mpg-CN). The rationale behind support selection will also be discussed. I will also describe the rational design of g-CN and other 2D semiconductor-based photocatalysts for various chemical transformations. The catalytic performance of these nanomaterials will be demonstrated in applications such as hydrogen production from chemical hydrogen storage materials (water, ammonia borane, and formic acid), transfer hydrogenation for the synthesis of valuable organic molecules under mild conditions, C–H bond functionalization, and electrochemical processes including CO₂ reduction and fuel-cell reactions. Finally, I will share insights from our experience commercializing an rGO–Ni₃₀Pd₇₀ nanocatalyst and a bismuthene photocatalyst for practical chemical transformations.

ISyE - IISE Info Session with special guest ABB
2025-10-20 17:00 - 18:00 | TBD, 1415 Engineering Drive, Madison, 53711
Information session with ABB. Location TBD.

BME Seminar Series: Susan Leggett, PhD
2025-10-20 12:00 - 13:00 | 1003 (Tong Auditorium) Engineering Centers Building, 1550 Engineering Drive, Madison, WI, 53706, United States
Engineering Tumor Microenvironments on a Chip to Model Early Events in Breast and Ovarian Cancer Metastasis

Susan Leggett, PhDAssistant ProfessorDepartment of BioengineeringUniversity of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Abstract:The tumor microenvironment is a dynamic and multifaceted ecosystem in which biochemical and mechanical cues jointly regulate cell behavior, tumor heterogeneity, and disease progression. My lab develops engineered “tumor-on-a-chip” systems to reconstruct the 3D tumor microenvironment and dissect how cell-cell interactions, fluid flow, and interfacial mechanics influence early metastatic events. In this talk, I will first introduce our approach for the rapid and accessible fabrication of organ-on-a-chip devices using epoxy-coated 3D printed molds. This workflow enables the generation of high-fidelity, biocompatible PDMS-based devices in a scalable, reproducible, and imaging-compatible format. I will then discuss how we are leveraging this technology to reverse-engineer solid breast tumors composed of heterogeneous cancer cell and immune cell subpopulations, including macrophages, to model how tumor-immune interactions shape cell plasticity and collective invasion. Finally, I will present our novel peritoneal cavity-on-a-chip, designed to mimic the primary route of ovarian cancer spread. In this model, individual ovarian cancer cells and clusters can be injected into fluid-filled peritoneal cavities to emulate circulating tumor cells that shed from the ovary during disease progression. Using live-cell imaging, we examine how these cells interact with, and infiltrate, the surrounding mesothelium to initiate metastatic colonization. Together, these approaches establish versatile experimental platforms to study dynamic cell and tissue-level behaviors, providing new strategies to model, predict, and ultimately control metastatic progression.

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ISyE- Student volunteering at the UW-Arboretum
2025-10-18 09:00 - 12:00 | UW Arobretum, Grady Tract Lot on Seminole Hwy, 1806 Seminole Hwy, Madison, 53711
Join fellow students at this IISE student-org sponsored event.

Students will be clearing woody brush from a prairie and/or possibly collecting prairie seeds. No experience is necessary, Arboretum staff will provide the training, tools, and gloves needed to participate safely and successfully. Please come dressed for outdoor work! Wear closed-toed shoes or boots, long pants, and whatever other clothes you require to work comfortably in tall and/or dense vegetation (long-sleeved layers, hats, sunscreen, etc.).

Mechanics Seminar: Professor Jacob McFarland
2025-10-17 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 Jacob McFarland is an associate professor at Texas A&M University.

MS&E Seminar Series: "Turbo-charging silicon: Do we have the materials and devices?"
2025-10-16 13:00 - 14:00
UW-Madison Department of Materials Science and Engineering welcomes Associate Professor Deep Jariwala. Their seminar, “Turbo-charging silicon: Do we have the materials and devices?”, will take place on Thursday, October 16 from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m. in MSE 265.

Bio

Deep Jariwala is an Associate Professor and the Peter & Susanne Armstrong Distinguished Scholar in the Electrical and Systems Engineering as well as Materials Science and Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania (Penn). Deep completed his undergraduate degree in Metallurgical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology in Varanasi and his Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering at Northwestern University. Deep was a Resnick Prize Postdoctoral Fellow at Caltech before joining Penn to start his own research group. His research interests broadly lie at the intersection of new materials, surface science and solid-state devices for computing, opto-electronics and energy harvesting applications in addition to the development of correlated and functional imaging techniques. Deep’s research has been widely recognized with several awards from professional societies, funding bodies, industries as well as private foundations, the most notable ones being the Optica Adolph Lomb Medal, the Bell Labs Prize, the AVS Peter Mark Memorial Award, IEEE Photonics Society Young Investigator Award, IEEE Nanotechnology Council Young Investigator Award, IUPAP Early Career Scientist Prize in Semiconductors, the SPIE Early career achievement award and the Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship. He has published over 150 journal papers with more than 22000 citations and holds several patents. He serves as the Associate Editor for Nano Letters (ACS) and has been appointed as a Distinguished Lecturer for the IEEE Nanotechnology Council for 2025.Website: jariwala.seas.upenn.edu

Email: dmj@seas.upenn.edu

Abstract

Silicon has been the dominant material for electronic computing for decades and very likely will stay dominant for the foreseeable future. However, it is well-known that Moore’s law and Dennard’s scaling that propelled Silicon into this dominant position are long dead. Therefore, a fervent search for (i) new semiconductors that could directly replace silicon or (ii) new architectures with novel materials/devices added onto silicon or (iii) new physics/state-variables or a combination of above has been the subject of much of the electronic materials and devices research of the past 2 decades. In short, there is a pressing need for complementing and supplementing Silicon to operate with greater energy efficiency, speed and handle greater amounts of data. This is further necessary since a completely novel and paradigm changing computing platform (e.g. all optical computing or quantum computing) remains out of reach for now.

The above is, however, not possible without fundamental innovation in new electronic materials and devices. Therefore, in this talk, I will try to make the case of how novel layered two-dimensional (2D) chalcogenide materials1 and three-dimensional (3D) nitride materials might present interesting avenues to overcome some of the limitations being faced by Silicon (as well as Silicon Carbide) hardware. I will start by briefly introducing our past work on integration of 2D chalcogenide semiconductors with silicon2 to realize low-power tunnelling field effect transistors. In particular, I will focus on In-Se based 2D semiconductors2 for this application and extend discussion on them to phase-pure, epitaxial thin-film growth over wafer scales,3 at temperatures low-enough to be compatible with back end of line (BEOL) processing in Silicon fabs.

I will then switch gears to discuss memory devices from 2D materials when integrated with emerging wurtzite structure ferroelectric nitride materials4 namely aluminium scandium nitride (AlScN). First, I will present on Ferroelectric Field Effect Transistors (FE-FETs) made from 2D materials when integrated with AlScN and make the case for 2D semiconductors in this application.5-9

Next, I will introduce our work on Ferroelectric Diode (FeD) devices also based on thin AlScN.10-11 In addition, I will also present how FeDs provide a unique advantage in compute-in-memory (CIM) architectures for efficient storage, search as well as hardware implementation of neural networks.12 Finally, IF time permits, I will present ongoing work and opportunities to extend the application of AlScN memory devices into extreme environments.13-16

I will end the talk with a broad perspective on the role of novel materials that could turbo-charge silicon, silicon carbide and other pervasive semiconductor technologies for electronic computing.

References:

(1) Song, S.; Rahaman, M.; Jariwala, D. ACS Nano 2024, 18, 10955–10978.

(2) Miao, J.; ….et al. Jariwala, D. Nature Electronics 2022, 5 (11), 744-751.

(3) Song, S.;… et al. Jariwala, D. Matter 2023, 6, 3483-3498.

(4) Kim, K.-H.;…. et al. Jariwala, D. Nature Nanotechnology 2023, 18 (5), 422-441.

(5) Liu, X.;… et al. Jariwala, D. Nano Letters 2021, 21 (9), 3753-3761.

(6) Kim, K.-H.;.. et al. Jariwala, D. Nature Nanotechnology 2023, 18, 1044–1050.

(7) Kim, K.-H.; .. et al. Jariwala, D. ACS Nano 2024, 18 (5), 4180-4188.

(8) Song, S.;… et al. Jariwala, D. ACS Nano 2025.

(9) Song, S.;…et al. Jariwala, D. Applied Physics Letters 2023, 123 (18).

(10) Liu, X.; et al. Jariwala, D. Applied Physics Letters 2021, 118 (20), 202901.

(11) Kim, K.-H.;et al. Jariwala, D. ACS Nano 2024, 18 (24), 15925-15934.

(12) Liu, X.; et al. Jariwala, D. Nano Letters 2022, 22 (18), 7690–7698.

(13) Pradhan, D. K.; et al. Jariwala, D. Nature Electronics 2024, 7 (5), 348-355.

(14) He, Y.; et al. Jariwala, D. Applied Physics Letters 2023, 123 (12).

(15) He, Y.; et al. Jariwala, D. Nano Letters 2025.

(16) Pradhan, D. K.; et al. Jariwala, D. Nature Reviews Materials 2024, 9 (11), 790-807.

2025 ECE Undergraduate Scholarship Reception
2025-10-16 12:00 - 13:00 | Union South – Varsity Hall, 1308 W Dayton St, Madison, Wisconsin, 53715
ECE undergraduate scholarship recipients are cordially invited to attend the 2025 ECE Undergraduate Scholarship Reception for ECE and College of Engineering scholarship recipients. Please join us on Thursday, October 16th for a short program, followed by refreshments and photo opportunities, that will celebrate our accomplished students and their generous benefactors. The event will be held in Varsity Hall at Union South, from noon until 1:00pm.

Scholarship recipients, check your email for your invitation and instructions to RSVP by October 1.

ISyE - SolidWorks Workshop for Beginners
2025-10-15 18:00 - 19:45 | 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
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
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
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.
