Welcome to the electronic home of the Boston University Department of Mechanical Engineering. We are experiencing several years of significant growth and change for the Department, starting with the July 1, 2008 merger of the BU Manufacturing Engineering and Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering departments, resulting in a single, unified Department of Mechanical Engineering, boasting over 40 full time faculty dedicated to quality undergraduate and graduate instruction and active in a multiplicity of research topics ranging from acoustic levitation to bone mechanics.  ME faculty have joint appointments in other Departments and are participating faculty in the recently established BU Division of Material Science and Engineering and Division of Systems Engineering.  Add to the mix approximately $9M in new extramural research funding in FY2011 and you have a rich tapestry of applied and basic research activity that cuts across disciplines and offers enhanced breadth and depth of opportunity to our students.  Current areas of strength within the Department include, but are not limited to, acoustics and vibrations, automated manufacturing, biomaterials and biomedical applications of mechanical engineering, thermo-fluid sciences, materials engineering and mechanics, MEMS & NEMS, nanobiotechnology, robotics & controls, photonics, and systems engineering.

For students who matriculated in September 2008, the Department offered accredited BS degrees in mechanical, aerospace, and manufacturing engineering.  However, the Department is entering the final year of a 4-year process in which we “sunset” our BS degree programs in aerospace engineering and manufacturing engineering and replace them with an accredited degree in mechanical engineering with concentrations in aerospace and manufacturing.  This will provide students with the best of both worlds: a solid foundational degree in the highly marketable and intellectually mobile discipline of mechanical engineering, coupled to optional, specialized education in either aerospace or manufacturing engineering.  The College has also created two new concentrations accessible to ME students, one “Energy Technology and Environmental Engineering” and one in “Nanotechnology.”  The new ME program is designed with flexibility in mind.

At the graduate level, the Department offers the PhD in mechanical engineering as well as MS degrees in both mechanical and manufacturing engineering.  Both MS degrees require a thesis, and interested students can choose to pursue the MS in manufacturing via distance learning, as part of an international partnership with a consortium of German institutions, or even as a dual MS/MBA degree offered jointly with the School of Management.  In FY 2012 the Department has expanded its programmatic portfolio to include two new executive masters degrees, the MEng in mechanical engineering and manufacturing engineering.  The MEng caters to the advanced student who aspires to work in industry and features a suite of courses, taught by engineering professors, that reside in the growing intersection of engineering and management.  This programmatic diversity is a direct consequence of the merger, and positions the ME Department to respond to new challenges and opportunities in both education and research.

During the AY2010-2011 academic year we made three new additions to the ranks of full-time and adjunct ME teaching faculty.  Adjunct Lecturer Dr. Jason Holmes is on the research staff at Bolt Berenek and Neuman and joined the department as a part time instructor, specializing in thermo-fluids courses.  He is a graduate of the Department (BS/PhD) and we are very pleased to welcome him home.  In addition, Dr. Peter Zink, another BU alum, joined the department in a full-time capacity and serves as an Assistant Research Professor and Instructor.  In addition to teaching courses in materials engineering, Dr. Zink engages in research on novel technologies that inherently encourage energy sustainability, efficiency, and conservation.  He joined us from the Idaho National Laboratory in Idaho Falls, Idaho.  Finally, Dr. John Peter Voccio recently came on as a part-time Adjunct Lecturer in the area of dynamics.  He received his PhD from Kei University (Japan) in 2007 and is employed as an independent consultant and a visiting scientist at the MIT Francis Bitter Magnet Lab.

I am particularly pleased to welcome a new addition to the ranks of ME tenure track faculty.  Assistant Professor Aaron Schmidt was recruited following a nation-wide search motivated by the Department’s ongoing effort to expand its strength and competence in energy conversion and nanoscience, part of the larger departmental goal of building excellence in selected focus areas.  Professor Schmidt received his PhD from MIT in 2008.  A member of the BU Photonics Center, his research focuses on the development and application of the latest optical tools to study and manipulate transport of energy in solids and liquids from the nanoscale to the macroscale, with applications in developing new materials, energy conversion, thermal management, and furthering fundamental understanding of nanoscale transport phenomena.

A number of ME faculty members received well-deserved awards.  John Baillieul was the University of Maryland Booz Allen Hamilton Distinguished Colloquium Lecturer and the recipient of the 2011 IEEE Hendrik W. Bode Prize.  Elise Morgan, was awarded a Ruth L. Kirschstein National Service Award for Senior Fellows (F33) by the National Institutes of Health and had a research paper named winner of the 2010 American Association of Orthodontists Milo Hellman Research Award.  Xin Zhang received the Advanced Energy Consortium (AEC) Award, the Schlumberger Award for Excellence and Leadership in MEMS/NEMS Research, and boasts Best Paper awards in Journal of Physics D: Applied Physics and in IEEE Sensors.  More locally, Soumendra Basu  received the BU College of Engineering Service Award, Don Wroblewski received the ENG Excellence in Teaching Award, and Ray Nagem was given the ME Department Award for Excellence in Teaching.

In AY2010-2011, the ME department featured a total undergraduate enrollment of 499 and conferred 144 Bachelor of Science degrees in three active degree programs.  Several students won significant awards including approximately 80% of the awards conferred by the College.  The graduate program hosted approximately 98 MS/PhD students enrolled, with 54 degrees conferred in three degree programs.  Several graduate students won best paper awards and extramural fellowships (NSF, Claire Booth Luce).  It is important to stress that the ME faculty research portfolio is extremely diverse and crosscutting.  Mechanical engineering professors serve as PI on grants administered by numerous College departments and research centers, as well as the BU Medical Center.  Indeed, almost 50% of the PhD students supported by ME faculty are earning degrees in programs outside of mechanical engineering, mostly in BME, ECE, or one of the Division programs.

The study of mechanical engineering bestows the scholar with an excellent general education and prepares students for the multifaceted challenges of our evolving technological world.  The last 4 years were witness to expansive growth and exciting changes in our research portfolio, faculty demographics, and degree programs. I invite you to peruse the web site and learn more about the depth and breadth of our programs, the spectrum of student activities, profiles of award-winning faculty, research interests, and facilities. Please visit this site for the latest updates and announcements as the BU Department of Mechanical Engineering marches forth into the future.  It is my hope that, in doing so, you will choose to make study at Boston University part of your future.

Ronald A. Roy

Professor and Chair

Department of Mechanical Engineering