Abstract: Cells are highly dynamic structures that are constantly converting chemical energy into mechanical work to pull and push on one another and on their surroundings. These pulls and pushes are mediated by tiny molecular forces at the scale of piconewtons. For context, 7 pN applied a distance of 1 nm is ~1 kcal/mol. Nonetheless, […]

Thomas Lord Department of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science (MEMS) Spring 2026 Distinguished Seminar Speaker Series welcomes Carmel Majidi (Carnegie Mellon) to present the MEMS Seminar, "Soft-Matter Engineering for Robotics and Wearables." ABSTRACT: Progress in soft lithography and soft materials integration have led to extraordinary new classes of soft-matter sensors, circuits, and transducers. These material […]

Thomas Lord Department of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science hosts Dr. Seth Hutchinson (Northeastern) to present the MEMS Seminar, "Model-Based Methods in Today's Data-Driven Robotics Landscape." Abstract: Data-driven machine learning methods are making advances in many long-standing problems in robotics, including grasping, legged locomotion, perception, and more. There are, however, robotics applications for which data-driven […]

Thomas Lord Departments of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science (MEMS) Spring 2026 Distinguished Seminar Speaker Series welcomes Dr. Jian Cao (Northwestern) to deliver the MEMS Distinguished Seminar, "Physics-based AI-assisted Design and Control Manufacturing Processes." Abstract: Current research efforts at my manufacturing group aim to advance the capability to co-design materials and manufacturing processes using hybrid […]

Thomas Lord Department of Mechanical Engineering & Materials Science invites Dr. Olivier Delaire (Duke) to present the MEMS Seminar, "The Dynamics of Atoms in Solids - from Early Breakthroughs to Current Challenges." ABSTRACT: From Einstein's and Debye's models for the heat capacity , through Peierls' early theory of thermal conductivity , and the Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer theory […]