Academics
/ Graduate Study
The Mechanical Engineering Graduate Student Society (MEGSS) provides a student voice on departmental issues like faculty selection and curriculum matters. In this way, the concerns of the graduate students help shape the way the ME graduate program is run. To facilitate this, members of MEGSS attend select faculty meetings and sit on the Graduate Studies Committee and the Faculty Search Committees.
In addition to offering feedback to the faculty and department, we actively plan and sponsor social events to promote intra-departmental interaction between faculty, staff, and students across all years and research areas.
We also provide information and guidance to incoming and current ME graduate students to help them make informed decisions about their academic careers.
All mechanical engineering grads are encouraged to participate in our activities. Any feedback or suggestions for improvement that you might have are also welcome.
Officers
Ola Kalinowska
President
Ola is a third-year PhD student in Todd Murphey’s lab and works on robotics for assistance and rehabilitation. She loves the outdoors, skiing, sailing, and recently triathlons. Her favorite MEGSS event are the monthly Bagel Talks!
Hannah Emnett
Vice President
Hannah is a third year PhD student in Mitra Hartmann's lab in the NxR. As part of MEGSS, she has served as Secretary for the past two years and was Recruitment Chair in 2017. In addition to MEGSS, she is the Vice-President for SWE's graduate chapter at Northwestern. Her favorite MEGSS activity is the bi-weekly coffee hour.
Suman Bhandari
Media Chair
Suman is a second-year Ph.D. student from Nepal who is in Professor Jian Cao's and Professor Kornel Ehmann's group. Suman enjoys conversations and loves to play soccer.
Lichao Fang
Social Chair
Lichao is a second year PhD student in Professor Greg Wagner's group.
As a social chair of MEGSS, she loves to meet new people and have good conversations over coffee. She also loves swimming, painting, and music.
Thomas Janssen
Social Chair
Thomas is a second year PhD student in Professor Mitra Hartmann’s group doing flow visualization. His hobbies include playing violin, piano, soccer, videogames, and going to the movies. His favorite band is Marianas Trench and the best restaurant in Evanston is Siam Splendor.
Marisa Bisram
Social Chair
Marisa is a first year PhD student in Professor Jian Cao's group. She enjoys meeting new people, eating food, and travelling. In her free time, Marisa crochets and participates in beekeeping.
Kerim Dansuk
Social Chair
Kerim is a third-year PhD student in Sinan Keten’s lab and works on bioinspired computational material design. He loves listening to/playing music and recently really into tabletop games
Akshay Iyer
Professional Development Chair
Originally from India, Akshay is a second year PhD student in Professor Wei Chen's IDEAL group, focusing on data driven design of materials. He serves as one of the social chairs for MEGSS.
Akshay is a die-hard soccer fan (Arsenal and Barcelona FC supporter), enjoys cooking and follows current affairs.
Milli Schlafly
Recruitment Chair
Milli is a first year Ph.D. student in Todd Murphey's group. Her hobbies include dance, cooking and eating food, walking, working out, yoga, podcasts, traveling, double solitaire, and painting. Recent interests have been tennis, ceramics, and audio books.
Annalisa Taylor
Recruitment Chair
Annalisa is a first year PhD student in Todd Murphey's lab. Her hobbies are singing, hiking, painting, and running.
