Frank L. Hammond III joined George W. Woodruff George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering in April 2015. Prior to this appointment, he was a postdoctoral research affiliate and instructor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at MIT and a Ford postdoctoral research fellow at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. He received his Ph.D. in 2010 from Carnegie Mellon University.

Green’s research has been conducted under industrial and government sponsorship. His work broadly supports the field of design, rotordynamics, and tribology. The calculation of stiffness of bolted joints has become standard in classical design textbooks*. In 2006 he received the ASME highest honor, the Machine Design Award. His work on the dynamic behavior of mechanical seals operating in liquid or gas (again award winning) has been implemented into various computer codes which have been acquired by seals manufacturers, users, and research labs. For two decades he taught two continuing education courses: (1) The “Mechanical Engineering Professional Engineering Refresher,” and (2) with colleagues from BHRG, he taught and administered the course “Fluid Sealing Technology.” He served on numerous editorial boards, served on the STLE Board of Directors, and chaired two terms the Executive Committee of the ASME, Tribology Division.

Samuel Graham is the Rae S. and Frank H. Neely Professor in the School of Mechanical Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology. He also holds an appointment in the School of Materials Science and Engineering at Georgia Tech and a joint appointment with the Energy and Transportation Science Division at Oak Ridge National Laboratories. His research focuses on the packaging and reliability of electronic devices ranging from wide bandgap semiconductors to flexible organic electronics and wearable sensors. His is a member of the Center for Organic Photonics and Electronics at Georgia Tech and a co-founder of the Heat Lab which provides thermal solutions for electronics packaging.

Rudolph (Rudy) L. Gleason began at Tech in Fall 2005 as an assistant professor. Prior, he was a postdoctoral fellow at Texas A&M University. He is currently a professor in the School of Mechanical Engineering and the School of Biomedical Engineering in the College of Engineering. Gleason’s research program has two key and distinct research aims. The first research aim is to quantify the link between biomechanics, mechanobiology, and tissue growth and remodeling in diseases of the vasculature and other soft tissues. The second research aim is to translate engineering innovation to combat global health disparities and foster sustainable development in low-resource settings around the world. Gleason serves as a Georgia Tech Institute for People and Technology initiative lead for research activities related to global health equity and wellbeing.

Faces of Research - Profile Article

Craig Forest is a Professor and Woodruff Faculty Fellow in the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering at Georgia Tech where he also holds program faculty positions in Bioengineering and Biomedical Engineering. He conducts research on miniaturized, high-throughput robotic instrumentation to advance neuroscience and genetic science, working at the intersection of bioMEMS, precision machine design, optics, and microfabrication. Prior to Georgia Tech, he was a research fellow in Genetics at Harvard Medical School. He obtained a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from MIT in June 2007, M.S. in Mechanical Engineering from MIT in 2003, and B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Georgia Tech in 2001. He is cofounder/organizer of one of the largest undergraduate invention competitions in the US—The InVenture Prize, and founder/organizer of one of the largest student-run makerspaces in the US—The Invention Studio. He was a recently a Fellow in residence at the Allen Insitutte for Brain Science in Seattle WA; he was awarded the Georgia Tech Institute for BioEngineering and BioSciences Junior Faculty Award (2010) and was named Engineer of the Year in Education for the state of Georgia (2013). He is one of the inaugural recipients of the NIH BRAIN Initiative Grants, a national effort to invent the next generation of neuroscience and neuroengineering tools. In 2007, he was a finalist on the ABC reality TV show "American Inventor.”

Fedorov's background is in thermal/fluid sciences, chemical reaction engineering as well as in applied mathematics. His laboratory works at the intersection between mechanical and chemical engineering and solid state physics and analytical chemistry with the focus on portable/ distributed power generation with synergetic CO₂ capture; thermal management of high power dissipation devices and electronics cooling; special surfaces and nanostructured interfaces for catalysis, heat and moisture management; and development of novel bioanalytical instrumentation and chemical sensors. Fedorov joined Georgia Tech in 2000 as an assistant professor after finishing his postdoctoral work at Purdue University.

Erturk began at Georgia Tech in May 2011 as an Assistant Professor, he was promoted to Associate Professor with tenure in 2016 and became a full Professor in 2019. Prior to joining Georgia Tech, he worked as a Research Scientist in the Center for Intelligent Material Systems and Structures at Virginia Tech (2009-2011). His postdoctoral research interests included theory and experiments of smart structures for applications ranging from aeroelastic energy harvesting to bio-inspired actuation. His Ph.D. dissertation (2009) was centered on experimentally validated electromechanical modeling of piezoelectric energy harvesters using analytical and approxIMaTe analytical techniques. Prior to his Ph.D. studies in Engineering Mechanics at Virginia Tech, Erturk completed his M.S. degree (2006) in Mechanical Engineering at METU with a thesis on analytical and semi-analytical modeling of spindle-tool dynamics in machining centers for predicting chatter stability and identifying interface dynamics between the assembly components.

Dr. Dixon began at Georgia Tech in August 2009 as an Assistant Professor. Prior to his current appointment, he was a staff scientist at Ecole Polytechnique Federal de Lausanne (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology - Lausanne) doing research on tissue-engineered models of the lymphatic system. Dr. Dixon received his Ph.D. in biomedical engineering while working in the Optical Biosensing Laboratory, where he developed an imaging system for measuring lymphatic flow and estimating wall shear stress in contracting lymphatic vessels. 

Dr. Dixon's research focuses on elucidating and quantifying the molecular aspects that control lymphatic function as they respond to the dynamically changing mechanical environment they encounter in the body. Through the use of tissue-engineered model systems and animal models, our research is shedding light on key functions of lymphatic transport, and the consequence of disease on these functions. One such function is the lymphatic transport of dietary lipid from the intestine to the circulation. Recent evidence from our lab suggests that this process involves active uptake into lymphatics by the lymphatic endothelial cells. There are currently no efficacious cures for people suffering from lymphedema, and the molecular details connecting lymphedema severity with clinically observed obesity and lipid accumulation are unknown. Knowledge of these mechanisms will provide insight for planning treatment and prevention strategies for people facing lipid-lymphatic related diseases. 

Intrinsic to the lymphatic system are the varying mechanical forces (i.e., stretch, fluid shear stress) that the vessels encounter as they seek to maintain interstitial fluid balance and promote crucial transport functions, such as lipid transport and immune cell trafficking. Thus, we are also interested in understanding the nature of these forces in both healthy and disease states, such as lymphedema, in order to probe the biological response of the lymphatic system to mechanical forces. The complexity of these questions requires the development of new tools and technologies in tissue engineering and imaging. In the context of exploring lymphatic physiology, students in Dr. Dixon's laboratory learn to weave together techniques in molecular and cell biology, biomechanics, imaging, computer programming, and image and signal processing to provide insight into the regulation of lymphatic physiology. Students in the lab also have the opportunity to work in an interdisciplinary environment, as we collaborate with clinicians, life scientists, and other engineers, thus preparing the student for a career in academia and basic science research, or a career in industry.