Mary Polytaridis will be retiring in July of 2023 after serving as our Chief Operations Officer for almost a decade. Mary spent 24 years with UC San Diego, including her 8.5 years with the MAE Department. She championed our department through countless challenges, including the unprecedented territory of navigating a team through a worldwide pandemic while working remotely. Her grace and patience kept the boat steady even on rough seas. She initiated and oversaw several renovation processes that have improved both the function and aesthetic of our workplace and laboratories, which will serve our department for several years to come.

We celebrate Mary and all that she has contributed to MAE to make our department great, and she will be missed. We wish Mary the very best on this next adventure with family and friends.  

It is with great sadness that we take a moment to remember Professor Emeritus Robert (Bob) Eugene Skelton, who passed away on February 15th, 2023 in Fairhope, Alabama. Skelton’s contributions to the field of tensegrity and engineering are immeasurable, and he paved the way for future generations of researchers. Skelton was a model for combining theory, method development, and industry engagement.

Upon joining UC San Diego in 1996, Skelton initiated and constructed a research group within MAE in Dynamic Systems and Controls that was both interdisciplinary and innovative. Two decades later, due to his leadership, MAE is now home to one of the top leading controls programs in the country, with almost 20 participating faculty members. 

Skelton had an insatiable appetite for learning, and served in multiple roles throughout his lifetime. During his tenure at the Marshall Space Flight Center, he was crucial in the development of the control systems for Apollo, Skylab, the space shuttle, and the Hubble telescope. Afterwards, he joined Purdue as a Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics for 22 years. Once at UC San Diego, Skelton served as a Professor for 10 years and remained as a Professor Emeritus for several additional years. He also dedicated seven years to Texas A&M as a Distinguished Research Professor. 

Skelton’s achievements are plentiful, including a SKYLAB Achievement Award, his induction into the National Academy of Engineering in 2012, the Norman Medal from the American Society of Civil Engineers, and the Humboldt Foundation Senior US Scientist Award, to name a few.

Skelton’s kind and humble demeanor led him to become a mentor to many, and he will be greatly missed. Although we grieve his loss, we continue to feel the impact of his exceptional work both at UC San Diego and in the engineering community at large.

Similarly, the Aerospace Fabrication Lab (part of the Aerospace Design Center) has expanded into EBU II Rooms 126 and 137 in order to provide more working space to over 20 project teams completing their Aerospace Senior Capstone Design projects in 155B in Spring 2023. These students will be designing and building various types of remote-controlled aircrafts.

Grants

Assistant Professor Boris Kramer received an award from ASML of San Diego. Boris works to develop reduced-order modeling techniques for high-dimensional transient systems, such as the EUV light-source that ASML develops. The award is to further strengthen Boris’s research in order to target industrial applications. ASML strives to advance the next generation of EUV lithography. 

Assistant Professor Lisa Poulikakos received the 2023 Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR) Young Investigator Research Program (YIP) award for her work on metasurfaces technologies. The AFOSR is the research arm of the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL), which leads in the development and discovery of new technologies for air and space. Additionally, YIP increases early career development while resolving challenges in science and engineering. 

Lisa’s research focuses on miniature, on-chip nanostructured surfaces called “metasurfaces” that will provide a greater understanding of gas and plasma flow by viewing both at unparalleled spatial resolutions. In turn, the research could improve the development of power and propulsion systems while reducing optical component costs. 

Her work, titled “Nano-Optical and Plasmo-Acoustic Metasurfaces for High-Resolution, Non-Intrusive Flow Visualization in Gases and Plasma" will enable collaborations in MAE with Associate Professor Nicholas Boechler, Assistant Professor Abhishek Saha, Professor George Tynan, and Professor Farhat Beg. 

Assistant Professor Aaron Rosengren has been selected as a fellow for the 2023 Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR) Summer Faculty Fellowship Program (SFFP) at the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) Directed Energy Directorate. The SFFP spurs professional relationships among selected fellows and Air Force Scientists while advancing innovative research in science, engineering, and mathematics. Aaron will be working alongside Captain Zachary Funke to research “Astrodynamics for Space Surveillance”, specifically in regards to extending U.S. space situational awareness capabilities into Cislunar space. Aaron will spend 11 weeks at the AFRL in Maui this upcoming summer. He will be joined by MAE Ph.D student Benjamin Hanson, who is co-advised by Professor Thomas Bewley. 

Photo courtesy of Dr. Aaron Rosengren, AFRL, and Dr. Paul Spudis. 

Associate Professor Michael Tolley and Associate Professor Nicholas Gravish were recently selected for the Office of Naval Research (ONR) Defense University Research Instrumentation Program (DURIP) for their work regarding a Multimodal Ocean Soft Robot (MOSoRo) Platform.  DURIP supports research by providing the instrumentation needed for innovative studies.  

The development of the MOSoRo Platform is inspired by the overwhelming successes of resistive-force theory applied to locomotion within dry granular materials. The system will enable the researchers to gain a new understanding of the mechanics of robots interacting with underwater environments while allowing them to investigate approaches to energy harvesting from the deformation of soft robots.

Michael and Nicholas also received an ONR award for their work titled, “Self-Sufficient Swimming and Digging Worm-Inspired Robot (S2 SanD-Worm)”. The research is inspired by the digging capabilities of Polychaete worms, and aims to develop a completely soft-bodied robot capable of locomotion in the water and submerged granular seabeds. The robot will use appendage-based locomotion influenced by Polychaete parapodia by drawing on knowledge gained from previously funded ONR research on robot digging. 

Their research will enhance robot digging capabilities in three areas: (1) resistive force control of granular materials through hydraulic fluidization and fracture; (2) actuation and volumetric control through heating of low-boiling point fluids (LBFs); (3) and drag reduction and forward propulsion through soft body eversion. 

Associate Professor Oliver Schmidt received an Office of Naval Research (ONR) grant for his work titled, “Machine Learning Control of Jet Noise". His team is investigating the use of episode-based machine learning to discover new control laws for active open-loop control of jet noise from complex nozzles. This study builds upon a previously developed numerical simulation environment, which accurately predicted noise emissions of a supersonic rectangular twin-jet. The research design incorporates expert knowledge into the latest generation of model-free machine learning algorithms, focusing on finding new control laws for reducing or redirecting noise using new actuation strategies. The research considers two machine learning paradigms (deep reinforcement learning and gradient-enriched genetic programming) which have shown efficiency and effectiveness in previous active open-loop flow control studies.

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Most adults need about 7-9 hours of sleep each night. In order to maximize your sleep, try to stick to consistent wake and sleep times, which will align your circadian rhythm. Equally helpful, bright light exposure each day through sunlight or bright lights indoors can increase your energy and will aid in a more fulfilling night of sleep.