Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Events for February
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Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering Seminar Series
Wed, Feb 03, 2016 @ 03:30 PM - 04:30 PM
Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Bala Ambati, Professor & Director of Corneal Research at the Moran Eye Center University of Utahrneal Research Moran Eye Center at the University of Utah
Talk Title: Rays vs. Shadows: Fighting Global Blindness through Ophthalmic Genetics & Bioengineering
Series: Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering Seminar Series
Abstract: Over 30 million people are blind in both eyes, with another 200 million patients with significant loss of vision in one or both eyes. This is an unnecessary tragedy - 80% of this vision loss is preventable or treatable. Dr. Ambati share his journey in vision research and global health by showing how ocular biology and drug delivery can be married and employed to combat the principal challenges of our time in the world of vision - cataract, corneal scarring, macular degeneration, and diabetic retinopathy. He will his discuss his laboratory's innovations in drop-free cataract surgery, targeted intraceptor nanoparticles for macular degeneration and corneal transplant rejection, and neurovascular restoration in the diabetic retina. He will also lay out the landscape and opportunities in eye research and global blindness.
Biography: Bala Ambati is a cornea specialist with a research focus in angiogenesis. Dr. Ambati's team is presently focused on the role of sFlt-1 in maintaining ocular vascular demarcations, work which was awarded the 2012 ARVO/Genentech Award for Research in Macular Degeneration, the 2013 Troutman-Veronneau Prize & the 2014 Ludwig von Sallmann Clinician-Scientist Award. Clinically, Dr. Ambati was the first to describe use of bevacizumab (Avastin) to treat corneal transplant rejection. He has developed key surgical innovations and is developing transformational ocular drug delivery implants which will serve as a versatile platform for treating macular degeneration, glaucoma, and other diseases by sustained release of multiple drugs from within the lens capsule. Dr. Ambati has been recognized for his teaching excellence by a University of Utah Resident Research Mentor Award, the Gold Humanism Award, and by serving as an Instructor at the Harvard Cataract Course for 2009 and 2010.
Host: Dr. Anita Penkova
Location: Seaver Science Library (SSL) - 150
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Valerie Childress
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering Candidate Series
Mon, Feb 22, 2016 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Khalid Jawed, Ph.D Candidate, Department of Mechanical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA
Talk Title: Mechanics of Thin Elastic Rods: Computer Graphics Meets Engineering
Abstract: Thin rods are ubiquitous in both nature (e.g. bacterial flagella, human hair) and engineering (ropes, cables), from the micron to the kilometer scale, and often undergo extreme deformation. The geometric nonlinearities that result from the deformation process pose enormous challenges to traditional analytical and numerical tools. Moreover, it is often unfeasible to perform experiments at the original length scale of these systems. We overcome these challenges by combining model experiments and cutting-edge computational tools ported from computer graphics. The prominence of geometry in this class of systems enables the scaling (up or down) of the problem to the desktop scale, which allows for systematic experimental exploration of parameter space. In parallel, we conduct numerical simulations using the Discrete Elastic Rods (DER) method, which was originally developed for the animation industry. For the first time, we port DER into engineering as a predictive computational tool and test ride it against model experiments by studying two a priori unrelated problems, at disparate length scales: (1) coiling of rods on rigid substrate motivated from laying of submarine cables on seabed (kilometer scale), and (2) propulsion and instability in bacterial flagella (micron scale). The excellent agreement found between experiments and simulations illustrates the predictive power of our approach. Scaling (up or down) to the original application then offers unprecedented tools for rationalization and engineering design.
Biography: Khalid Jawed is a PhD candidate in mechanics at the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (expected graduation: May 2016). His research focuses on the mechanics of slender rods; e.g. fuel pipelines, knots in ropes, bacterial flagella. He attained his Master's degree from the same institution in 2014. He received his undergraduate degrees in Aerospace Engineering and Engineering Physics from the University of Michigan in 2012. His career vision is centered around using computational, experimental, and modeling tools to characterize, enhance, control, and apply the material properties and mechanical instabilities to program the mechanical response of structures. His academic awards include GSNP best speaker award at American Physical Society March Meeting (2014) and outstanding teaching assistant award from MIT Mechanical Engineering (2015).
Location: 211
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Valerie Childress
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering Candidate Series
Wed, Feb 24, 2016 @ 03:30 PM - 04:30 PM
Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Reza Avazmohammadi , Postdoctoral Fellow, Institute for Computational Engineering and Science at The University of Texas at Austin
Talk Title: Constitutive Modeling of Soft Engineering and Biological Materials: The Role of Microstructure
Abstract: The need for a better understanding of structure-function relationships in soft materials is on the rise. This need lies beneath several disciplines including the engineering materials industry and biomechanics. The study of multiscale mechanics of soft engineering materials offers unique opportunities to design multifunctional materials with novel properties. Also, in the field of biomechanics, investigating the mechanistic interplay between the diseased tissue microstructure and the organ-level response helps to develop computational tools that allow clinicians to efficiently predict the progression of diseases.
Biography: Reza Avazmohammadi is a postdoctoral fellow in the area of cardiovascular simulations at the Institute for Computational Engineering and Sciences at UT Austin. Reza received his B.Sc. in Mechanical Engineering from Iran University of Science and Technology (2005), and his M.Sc. in Applied Mechanics from Sharif University of Technology (2007). Reza continued to work as a researcher at Sharif University in the area of mechanics of composite materials (2007-09). Reza received his Ph.D. degree in Applied Mechanics from University of Pennsylvania (2014) in the area of constitutive modeling of soft composite materials. His research interests are in multiscale-multiphysics modeling of soft materials, with an emphasis on understanding and exploiting the mechanistic link between the microstructure of these materials and their overall response.
Location: Seaver Science Library (SSL) - 150
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Valerie Childress
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering Candidate Series
Fri, Feb 26, 2016 @ 10:00 AM - 11:00 AM
Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Matthew Zahr, Ph.D Candidate, Institute for Computational and Mathematical Engineering at Stanford University
Talk Title: Accelerating PDE-Constrained Optimization Problems using Adaptive Reduced-Order Models
Abstract: Optimization problems constrained by partial differential equations are ubiquitous in modern science and engineering. They play a central role in optimal design and control of multiphysics systems, as well as nondestructive evaluation and detection, and inverse problems. Methods to solve these optimization problems rely on, potentially many, numerical solutions of the underlying equations. For complicated physical interactions taking place on complex domains, these solutions will be computationally expensive - in terms of both time and resources -“ to obtain, rendering the optimization procedure difficult or intractable.
I will introduce a globally convergent, non-quadratic trust-region method to accelerate the solution of PDE-constrained optimization problems by adaptively reducing the dimensionality of the underlying computational physics discretization. In this approach, the method of snapshots and Proper Orthogonal Decomposition (POD) are used to build a reduced-order model whose fidelity is progressively enriched while converging to the optimal solution. This ensures the reduced-order model is trained exactly along the optimization trajectory and effort is not wasted by training in other regions of the parameter space. A novel minimum-residual framework for computing surrogate sensitivities of the reduced-order model is introduced that equips the trust-region method with desirable properties. The proposed method is shown to solve canonical aerodynamic shape optimization problems several times faster than accepted methods. This work has been extended to address the specific challenges posed by topology optimization, where high-dimensional parameter spaces are inevitable.
Biography: Matthew Zahr is a PhD candidate in Computational and Mathematical Engineering at Stanford University, with minors in Mechanical Engineering and Aeronautics/Astronautics, under the advisement of Prof Charbel Farhat. He received his BSc in Civil and Environmental Engineering, with a minor in Mathematics, from UC Berkeley in 2011.
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 218
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Valerie Childress
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering Candidate Series
Mon, Feb 29, 2016 @ 10:00 AM - 11:00 AM
Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Jenni Sidey, Research Assistant, Department of Engineering at the University of Cambridge
Talk Title: Experimental and numerical investigations of flames with gas turbine applications at the University of Cambridge
Abstract: With growing concern over anthropogenic climate change and increasingly stringent emission standards, the development of low-emission combustion technologies is a necessity. This seminar is concerned with the motivation, development, and implementation challenges associated with gas turbine and reciprocating engine pollutant reduction and the tools the combustion community is using to meet them. Of particular interest is the investigation of processes in which hot combustion products are used as a diluent for fresh reactants. The underlying physics of these processes will be discussed with results from laminar flame calculations, droplet autoignition simulations, and fundamental turbulent flame investigations with high speed laser diagnostics, while their application potential will be assessed through the investigation of a novel gas turbine combustor concept.
Biography: Jenni Sidey is a research associate at the University of Cambridge. Her postdoctoral position, funded by the European Commission Joint Clean Sky Initiative, focuses on the investigation of non-premixed, premixed, and spray flame extinction and thermoacoustic oscillations in gas turbine combustors. She completed her PhD in the summer of 2015, investigating heavily preheated and diluted flames. While studying Mechanical Engineering at McGill University, she took part in alternative fuel production and microgravity flame propagation experiments.
Location: Ronald Tutor Hall of Engineering (RTH) - 211
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Valerie Childress
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor.
