University of Minnesota Department of Mechanical Engineering

10/27/2026

The Department of Mechanical Engineering is proud of NSF ATP-Bio for Organ Biostasis being voted the overall winning concept at the 2026 XPRIZE Global Visioneering Summit. Congratulations on this achievement!

🏆 A major win for the future of organ preservation!

The Organ Biostasis concept, developed by a team including NSF ATP-Bio researchers, has been voted the overall winning concept at the 2026 XPRIZE Global Visioneering Summit!

This milestone brings us one step closer to a proposed $50 million global competition to revolutionize organ transplantation and accelerate drug discovery.

Congratulations to the entire team on this extraordinary achievement!

🔗 Read the full story: Press Release: https://atp-bio.org/organ-biostasis-voted-as-winning-concept-of-2026-xprize-global-visioneering-summit/

NSF ATP-Bio is an Engineering Research Center - This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. EEC 1941543

10/21/2026

The Department of Mechanical Engineering is proud to announce that Professor Suo Yang has been selected for the inaugural AIAA - The American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics 30/30 Recognition Program, which honors 30 young professionals in aerospace. Prof. Yang was recognized in the Propulsion and Energy category.

Read more: z.umn.edu/bpya

10/13/2026

Congratulations to Professor Ognjen Ilic on being awarded the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency - DARPA Director’s Fellowship!

The highly selective, one-year award provides $500,000 in additional funding to top performers in the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s Young Faculty Award program, supporting his continued work on ultralightweight nanophotonic radiators for adaptive, high-power heat rejection in spacecraft.

Read more: z.umn.edu/bp3t

10/08/2026

Eleven graduate students. Three minutes each. One slide.

On Tuesday, the Department of Mechanical Engineering hosted the 2026 Three Minute Thesis (ME3MT) competition. Our grad students took on the challenge of explaining complex doctoral research in just three minutes.

Behind every slide was a researcher working toward solutions for tomorrow’s challenges. It was inspiring to see the passion and purpose that drive their work, and a reminder that the ideas taking shape in our labs today could help build a better future for all of us.

Congratulations to this year’s winners:

🥇 First Place: Vikas Goud Jukanti

“It Looks Like Noise. But It’s Not. How a $2 Sensor Could Save $200 Billion.”

🥈 Second Place: Ruiyuan Chi

“How does a cell remember a stretch?”

⭐ People’s Choice: Rohit Nuli

“How Should a Stingray-Inspired Robot Turn?”

Thank you to all 11 contestants for sharing their work, and to everyone who came to support them.

Learn more and view past winners: z.umn.edu/me3mt

10/01/2026

The Department of Mechanical Engineering is proud to announce that Professor Suo Yang has been selected as a member of the Class of 2027 AIAA Associate Fellows by AIAA - The American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, the world's largest aerospace technical society.

Yang was recognized "for his research leadership in multi-physics modeling of turbulent reacting/multiphase flows, his commitment to mentoring the next generation of rocket scientists, and sustained technical stewardship."

Only 17% of AIAA members are ever selected for this grade. The Class of 2027 comes from 7 countries and 42 U.S. states.

Read more: z.umn.edu/bnx2

09/17/2026

The Department of Mechanical Engineering is proud to announce that Ph.D. student Rahaf Bahajry, advised by Professor Chris Hogan, has received third place in the Student Presenter Award competition at the 2026 Annual Meeting of the Electrostatics Society of America.

Her presentation, "Characterization of Triboelectrically Charged Micropowders via Aerosol Instrumentation," develops a novel method to measure the size-resolved charge distribution of triboelectrically charged polymer microparticles, with applications in powder coating, additive manufacturing, and pharmaceutical powders.

Read more: z.umn.edu/bme6

09/14/2026

Join us for the Three Minute Thesis (3MT®) competition hosted by the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Minnesota!

3MT challenges graduate students to consolidate their complex thesis research into a dynamic, easy-to-understand 3-minute presentation using a single static PowerPoint slide. It is a true test of concise academic communication, presentation clarity, and research impact.

Event Details:
📅 Date: Tuesday, October 6
⏰ Time: 5:30 PM – 7:00 PM CDT
📍 Location: Keller Hall 3-180 (In-person) & Online options available
🎟️ Registration: Open to all — no RSVP needed!

Learn more about the event and access the online stream here: z.umn.edu/3MT-2026

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09/09/2026

The Department of Mechanical Engineering is proud to announce that Professor Peter Bruggeman has received the 2026 William Crookes Prize at the Europhysics Conference on Atomic and Molecular Physics of Ionized Gases (ESCAMPIG).

Bruggeman was recognized for his major contributions to low-temperature plasma science, plasma diagnostics, atmospheric-pressure plasmas, and plasma-liquid interactions. Named for the British physicist and chemist Sir William Crookes, the prize is jointly sponsored by the European Physical Society and the Institute of Physics, and is awarded every other year to a mid-career researcher based on their entire career to date.

Read more: z.umn.edu/bk0c

09/02/2026

The Department of Mechanical Engineering is proud to announce that Professor Suo Yang has been selected for the inaugural class of the Office of Naval Research Chief of Naval Research Fellows Program.

Yang is one of only twelve researchers chosen nationwide from more than 180 nominations submitted by approximately 70 academic institutions across the United States. The one-year fellowship brings academic research professors to ONR in support of critical naval focus areas, building a network of researchers who can translate the Navy and Marine Corps' most pressing challenges into science and technology research.

Read more: z.umn.edu/bjaa

08/27/2026

The Department of Mechanical Engineering is proud to announce that Dr. Lakshya Gangwar, a postdoctoral associate in the department and a Ph.D. alumnus, has received the inaugural Ernest G. Cravalho Award from the Society for Cryobiology for Cryobiology, awarded annually for the best paper that integrates engineering and cryobiology.

The award recognizes his paper "Physical vitrification and nanowarming at liter-scale CPA volumes: toward organ cryopreservation," published in Nature Communications. The work addresses a long-standing engineering challenge in organ cryopreservation: how to rapidly and uniformly cool and rewarm biological systems at liter-scale volumes while avoiding ice formation.

Read more: z.umn.edu/bins

NSF ATP-Bio