Mechanical Engineering Faculty and Students Continue Earning Major Honors

Northwestern Engineering’s Department of Mechanical Engineering faculty and students have received a wide range of national and international honors recognizing achievements in research, leadership, innovation, and service.

The recognitions include faculty elected to prestigious academies and leadership positions, recipients of major disciplinary honors, and undergraduate and graduate students recognized for outstanding research and academic achievement.

FACULTY AWARDS AND HONORS

Bahador Bahmani received the AMD Haythornthwaite Award.

Zdeněk Bažant was elected a fellow of the National Academy of Inventors and received the Mang Medal from the Central European Association for Computational Mechanics, the organization’s highest award.

Jian Cao was elected to the Asian American Academy for Science and Engineering. She was also elected to the Council of the International Academy for Production Engineering (CIRP) for a three-year term running from September 2026 through August 2029.

Sandip Ghosal published Electroosmotic Flow and Transport (World Scientific, 2026), a new book examining the fundamental physics and applications of using electric fields to control fluid flow at the micro- and nanoscale. The book connects transport theory with practical device design and applications including microfluidics and electronics cooling.

Junsoo Kim received a Young Investigator Grant from the Korean-American Scientists and Engineers Association. The program recognizes one recipient in engineering and one in science.

Yonggang Huang was elected chair of the Mechanical Engineering Section of the US National Academy of Engineering and chair of the Engineering Section of the US National Academy of Sciences. He was also appointed chair of the Engineering Committee of the Royal Society, becoming the first foreign member in the organization’s nearly 400-year history to chair an election committee.

Huang also received the Eugenio Beltrami Senior Scientist Prize from Mathematics and Mechanics of Complex Systems and was elected an honorary fellow of the European Academy of Sciences. Research.com ranked him No. 1 globally in mechanical and aerospace engineering in its 2026 ranking of scientists. He will receive the ASME Medal, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers’ highest honor, at the ASME International Mechanical Engineering Congress and Exposition in November.

Tao Sun was selected to receive The Minerals, Metals & Materials Society’s Brimacombe Medal, which recognizes mid-career individuals for sustained excellence and achievement.

STUDENT AWARDS AND HONORS

Carter Taylor received the Best Presentation Award at the 2026 SME North American Manufacturing Research Conference. His first-authored paper, “PI-TSAD: A Physically Informed Time-series Anomaly Detection Framework for Real-time Monitoring of Keyhole Collapse in Laser Powder Bed Fusion,” also received the SME/NAMRC Outstanding Paper Award.

Seven mechanical engineering students received fellowships through the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program.

PhD students Gabrielle Leinbach, advised by Sinan Keten; Anna Lutz, advised by Junsoo Kim; Aravind Rao Ramaswami and Anunth Rao Ramaswami, both advised by Kevin Lynch, received fellowships. 

Undergraduate students Helena Young, advised by Todd Murphey; Kyan Shlipak, advised by Jesse Kroll; and Lynna Deng, advised by Nathan Wei, also received fellowships and will pursue PhDs. Young will remain at Northwestern, Shlipak will attend MIT, and Deng will attend the University of Pennsylvania.

UNDERGRADUATE AWARDS

The department’s three undergraduate awards went to Olivia Li, who received the Academic Achievement Award after earning a 4.000 GPA, also a first for the award. Julia Swanson received the Research and Innovation Award. Victoria Israel received the Service and Leadership Award.

GRADUATE STUDENT AWARDS

Michael Jenz received the Outstanding MS Thesis Award for “The Design and Control of an Actuated Prosthetic Arm.” Jenz was advised by Matthew Elwin and Matthew Major.

Sylvia Tan received the Belytschko Outstanding Research Award for her thesis, “Human-Resolution Haptic Displays for Realistic Texture Perception.” Tan was advised by J. Edward Colgate.