Skip Navigation
Search

News and Announcements

 

Carney Named Department Chair

P. Scott CarneyP. Scott Carney has been named Chair of the Department of Mechanical Engineering, effective September 1. He has a strong record of research achievements in theoretical applied physics and optical engineering with impact in imaging, metrology, and materials.

From 2001 until 2017, Carney was a member of the Electrical and Computer Engineering faculty at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and held a simultaneous appointment at The Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology. At Urbana-Champaign, he also served as interim founding director of the Innovation, Leadership, and Engineering Entrepreneurship degree program. Learn more here.

 

A Global Achievement for Robotics Team

MATE ROVOur multi-disciplinary student robotics team had a successful performance in Alpena, Michigan, for this year’s MATE ROV World Championship. Hosted at the Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary, the MATE ROV Competition—founded by the Marine Advanced Technology Education Center and now part of the Marine Technology Society—is the premier global stage for student-built underwater robots.

Teams from across the world came together to tackle real-world-inspired missions: navigating pipelines, conducting underwater surveys, and executing complex tasks under pressure.

_MATE ROVOver three action-packed days, the team faced it all—broken servos, power bus faults, and the kind of challenges that test not just engineering skills, but determination and teamwork. True to their motto, “Anything Is Possible,” they pushed forward with grit and innovation.
The team tied for 3rd place in the Product Demonstration event and 7th place overall—a personal best for SBRT and a moment of pride for our entire community.

 

 

AMMTO funds multi-institutional project

AMMTOThe U.S. Department of Energy’s Advanced Materials and Manufacturing Technologies Office (AMMTO) has awarded $2.2 million to support a multi-institutional project aimed at developing recyclable, fully additively manufactured high-performance magnets for next-generation wind turbines.

The project, titled “Demonstration of Advanced, Fully Additively Manufactured, Recyclable, High-Performance Magnets for a 15-Megawatt Generator,” is led by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and includes collaboration with several leading institutions. Stony Brook University (SBU) will receive $525,000 in funding, with Professor Shikui Chen from the Department of Mechanical Engineering serving as Principal Investigator. Professors Jon Longtin, (Mechanical Engineering) and Fang Luo (Electrical and Computer Engineering) are Co-Principal Investigators.

Collaborating institutions include:
- National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) – Lead institution
- Stony Brook University
- General Electric (GE) Vernova and GE Global Research
- Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL)
- Arnold Magnetic Technologies

The project aims to revolutionize magnet manufacturing for large wind generators through advanced structural design, additive manufacturing techniques, and the integration of recyclable materials. The SBU team will focus on topology optimization, design for additive manufacturing, and performance-driven material integration strategies.

This award highlights Stony Brook University’s leadership in clean energy innovation, advanced manufacturing, and interdisciplinary collaboration.

 

Motorsports Team Celebrates Successful Competition

Motorsports Team The Stony Brook Motorsports Team recently returned from a successful and eventful Baja SAE competition, where they raced their Baja car at the Budds Creek Motorcross Park in Mechanicsville, Maryland.

The team participated in both static and dynamic events. They passed all of the safety checks, placed 33rd/96 on the Hill Climb competition, and placed 40th/96 in the Acceleration competition.

Motorsports Competition 2025

Each year, Stony Brook Motorsports designs, builds, tests, and races an off-road vehicle, competing against colleges from around the world. Together, the interdisciplinary team develops skills in design, manufacturing, electronics, and business.

 

 

 

Senior Design Showcase

SrDesignShowcaseStony Brook hosted it's inaugural Engineering Senior Design Showcase on May 8. This showcase was a collaboration between the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Department of Civil Engineering, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Department of Materials Science and Chemisty Engineering, and the Department of Biomedical Engineering. There were 285 students who participated in the event, working in teams of 3–5 with faculty mentors to tackle real engineering challenges. Learn more here.

 

Students Create Community Impact

Engineering with EmpathyThis senior design team took their capstone project beyond the classroom and into the community.  Mechanical Engineering students, Anna Koulakova, Polina Bragina, and Molly Rubin, with support from their advisor Leana Grotz spent the past year designing a successful vest to improve Chestnut’s mobility. Learn more here.

 

 

Richard S. Lee Research Excellence Award

The Richard S. Lee Research Excellence Award is given to a select Masters or PhD graduate for an exceptionally strong dissertation, as well as a graduating senior who has demonstrated a commitment to research and who will be pursuing an advanced degree. This honor comes with a certificate and a $500 scholarship. Congratulations goes to Xiaoqiang Xu, PhD, and Jason Hamechand, BE. They received this award during the 2025 Mechanical Engineering Convocation ceremony. Here's a bit about these excellent researchers:

Xiaoqiang XuUnder the guidance of Professor Shikui Chen, Xiaoqiang Xu has been selected as an exceptional PhD candidate whose research accomplishments, leadership, and professional development make him highly deserving of this award. His work has led to five peer-reviewed journal publications, including articles in Computer Methods in Applied Mechanics and Engineering and International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer, and several conference papers in prestigious venues such as ASME IDETC/CIE and InterPACK. His innovative contributions to topology optimization for thermal management, additive manufacturing, and multiphysics modeling have been recognized with multiple awards, including the 2023 Graduate Research Symposium Poster Award at Stony Brook University. Beyond his research, Xiaoqiang has completed highly competitive internships at Toyota and Apple and demonstrated strong service to the academic community by serving as a reviewer for top journals. We commend Xiaoqiang for his impressive academic record, professional growth, and broad impact in research and education.

 

Jason HamechandUnder the guidance of Professor Spencer Zimmerman, Jason became interested in parallel image processing for turbulence measurements and taught himself parallel reduction and basic CUDA programming for Nvidia GPUs. He continued this work for two semesters, successfully converting a holographic image back-propagation code from MATLAB to CUDA, resulting in a substantial reduction in run time. Jason will be pursuing a research-track Master’s Degree at Johns Hopkins University in the fall.

 

 

Chancellor’s Award for Student Excellence

HaileeShehu_CASEHailee Shehu was recognized with the 2025 Chancellor’s Award for Student Excellence (CASE) — the State University of New York’s highest honor bestowed on a student.

The award celebrates academic excellence, leadership, campus involvement, community service and creative or performing arts. This year’s honorees were celebrated during an awards ceremony on April 29 in Albany, New York.

Hailee is a mechanical engineering major in the WISE Honors Program. She is a first-generation student and co-founder of the nonprofit Lindenhurst Launchpad. She also leads Stony Brook’s American Society of Mechanical Engineers chapter and mentors fellow students.

 

SOAR Program Accepts New Student

JohnLi_SOARJohn Li, a rising senior in Mechanical Engineering, has been accepted into the prestigious SUNY Summer Opportunities for Academic Research (SOAR) program. John will be conducting research in the Materials and Mechanics Laboratory under the guidance of Professor Kedar Kirane and Ph.D. student Wanru Miao.


The SOAR program supports academically talented SUNY undergraduates—especially those who are first-generation college students or from economically disadvantaged backgrounds—by offering hands-on research experiences.

This summer, John will spend over two months working on a Department of Defense–funded project through the Office of Naval Research. His work will focus on characterizing compressive failure in woven composite materials, particularly around circular holes—common features in structural applications. Through open-hole compression (OHC) testing, John will help generate valuable data on strength reduction and failure mechanisms like fiber kinking and delamination, contributing to the safe design and certification of advanced composite materials.

 

Student selected for Soft Flyers Group

Christina Wong_Soft Flyers

Congratulations to Christina Wong from the College of Arts and Sciences, who has been selected to join the Soft Flyers Group in the Department of Mechanical Engineering as part of the 2025 URECA Summer Research Program.

Over the 10-week program, Christina will contribute to an exciting swarm robotics project, focusing on developing a mechanism that enables two robotic agents to attach to one another—an important step toward advancing coordinated movement and collective behavior in robotic swarms.

 

Simons STEM Scholar 

Elda_STEMScholarElda Berhaneyessushas been selected as a scholar for the Explorations in STEM program — a competitive, 10-week full-time summer research experience co-administered by URECA and the Career Center, and proudly supported by The Stony Brook Simons STEM Scholars Program. 

Under the mentorship of Professor Lifeng Wang, Elda will be conducting research on “Development and Evaluation of Biodegradable Lattice Structures for Enhanced Energy Dissipation” — a cutting-edge project with meaningful applications in sustainability and materials science.

As part of this immersive program, Elda will join a vibrant community of undergraduate researchers, engage in professional development workshops (on topics like science communication, poster presentations, and graduate school applications), and present her work at the 2025 Summer Symposium on August 1.

Currently a freshman and proud Simons STEM Scholar, Elda is pursuing a degree in mechanical engineering and is passionate about advancing innovation in STEM — while also championing representation and equity in the field.

 

DURIP Award

DURIP AwardThe Defense University Research Instrumentation Program (DURIP) provides funding for university-based research that is critical to advancements in Navy-related studies. Professors from the Mechanical Engineering department teamed up on a project titled, "A Computational and Physical Framework for Rapid Prototyping of Robotics Systems with Embodied Intelligence." The principal investigator Dr. Anurag Purwar, along with Co-PIs, Dr. William Stewart, Dr. Kedar Kirane, Dr. Shanshan Yao, Dr. Shikui Chen, Dr. Nilanjan Chakraborty, and Dr. David Hwang had this project funded for $505,332 by the Department of Defense Office of Naval Research (ONR) to establish a sophisticated System of Instruments to advance the research on areas crucial to the Navy. They identified four primary areas of focus: multimodal aerial robotics, collaborative robotic (cobot) exoskeletons, soft embedded intelligence, and component and system level mechanical characterization. The system being acquired is a complementary suite of instruments including a CNC laser, material mechanics test stage, a bio 3D printer, and a 6-axis robotic arm.

 

CEAS First Annual Awards Ceremony

MEC TREES AWARD

The College of Engineering and Applied Sciences (CEAS) held its first awards ceremony on January 21. The ceremony honored research achievements and excellence in teaching and service for faculty and staff. Below, we have highlighted the recipients from our Mechanical Engineering department.

 
 
 
 
2022-2023 
Teachers Rated Excellent Educators by their Students (TREES)
  • Fu-Pen Chiang
  • Carlos Colosqui
  • Jie Gao
  • David Hwang
  • Joseph Schurz
 
2023-2024
Teachers Rated Excellent Educators by their Students (TREES)
  • Jie Gao
  • Austin Giordano
  • David Hwang
  • Kedar Kirane
  • Joseph Schurz
 
CEAS Award for Excellence in Teaching - Jie Gao
CEAS Award for Excellence in Professional Service - Noah Machtay
CEAS Award for Diversity Leadership - Carlos Colosqui
 

New Patent Issued: System and Method to ConductImin_BoneSurgery_Patent Bone Surgery

Professor Imin Kao, Ph.D (Mechanical Engineering), and Dr. Fazel Khan, MD (Orthopaedics) were recently issued a patent titled "System and Method to Conduct Bone Surgery." Along with their students, they are dealing with real clinical/surgical problems to accurately reproduce the pre-operative planning to remove osteosarcoma. They have developed new and innovative technologies to solve these problems.  They anticipate these solutions will make a big difference for patients and likely significantly change how many orthopedic surgeries are done. Learn more here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

top