Join us in welcoming five new faculty members to ME and congratulating current faculty members on recent promotions.

Xu Chen, Assistant Professor

Xu Chen joins us from the University of Connecticut, where he was an assistant professor of mechanical engineering. His research interests include dynamic systems and controls, advanced manufacturing and smart machines. Chen is a recipient of several awards, including a NSF CAREER Award and the Young Investigator Award from ISCIE / ASME International Symposium on Flexible Automation. He holds a Ph.D. (’13) and master’s degree (’10) in mechanical engineering from the University of California, Berkeley.

Juan Carlos del Alamo, Professor

Juan Carlos del Alamo joins us from the University of California, San Diego, where he was a professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering. His research focuses on biological fluid mechanics and cardiovascular biomechanics, with emphasis on cell mechanics and intracardiac flows. Del Alamo received his Ph.D. in aerospace engineering in 2005 from the Escuela Técnica Superior de Ingenieros Aeronauticos in Madrid, Spain. He served as a postdoctoral research associate at the Harvard University School of Public Health and as a Fulbright postdoctoral fellow at the University of California, San Diego. His research awards include the U.S. Geological Survey Director’s Award, a NSF CAREER Award and the William Parmley Award from American College of Cardiology.

Michelle DiBenedetto, Assistant Professor

Michelle DiBenedetto will join the department in 2021. Currently a postdoctoral scholar at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, she investigates fundamental fluid mechanics phenomena relevant to the environment using laboratory experiments and analytical techniques. DiBenedetto is interested in particulate transport and dispersal in natural systems. Her work aims to address how properties at the particle scale can impact large scale physical processes. She is motivated by problems such as microplastic pollution in the ocean and how active particles — plankton — respond to flow cues. DiBenedetto received her Ph.D. in civil and environmental engineering from Stanford University in 2019.

Mohammad Malakooti, Assistant Professor

Mohammad Malakooti researches at the intersection of solid mechanics, nanotechnology, materials science and manufacturing. His contributions in these areas have led to 60 publications consisting of 29 peer-reviewed articles published in high impact journals. Prior to joining the UW, he was a research scientist at Carnegie Mellon University, where he explored stretchable electronics for wearable computing and human-computer interactions, and a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Michigan. He holds a Ph.D. (’15) and master’s degree (’13) from the University of Florida.

Krithika Manohar, Assistant Professor

Krithika Manohar, who will join the department in 2021, specializes in data-driven learning, dimensionality reduction and control of large-scale dynamical systems. She investigates optimizing measurements for these objectives, with applications to sensor and actuator placement, fluid dynamics and manufacturing. A UW alumna, Manohar received her Ph.D. from in applied mathematics in 2018. She is currently a postdoctoral fellow in Computing & Mathematical Sciences at the California Institute of Technology.

Faculty promotions

Nathan Sniadecki

Junlan Wang

Igor Novosselov

We are also pleased to announce that, effective this fall, Nathan Sniadecki and Junlan Wang have been promoted to full professor from associate professor, and Igor Novosselov has been promoted to research associate professor from assistant professor.

Please join us in welcoming our new faculty and congratulating our current faculty members on their promotions.