Hui Zhao (Mechanical Engineering) recently received an R21 grant from the National Institute of Occupational Safety & Health, tittled "Durable Self-cleaning Fluorinated Graphene Oxide Coated N95 Respirators." The project will spray-coat highly fluorinated graphene oxide onto the outer surface of the N95 respirator to to make the N95…

Jeremy Cho (Mechanical Engineering), along with doctoral students Yiwei Gao and Negin Garakani, and undergraduate Nicholas K. K. Chai, authored a paper published in Soft Matter with Sujit S. Datta of Princeton University. The paper is titled "Scaling laws to predict humidity-induced swelling and stiffness in…

Christian Ison, Janet Dufek (both Kinesiology and Nutrition Sciences), and Mohamed Trabia (Mechanical Engineering) published a paper, "Use of Pressure-Measuring Insoles to Characterize Gait Parameters in Simulated Reduced Gravity Conditions" in the journal Sensors. Ison is a doctoral student in the interdisciplinary health sciences…

Zakai Olsen (Mechanical Engineering) just had the paper titled "A hyperelastic porous media framework for ionic polymer-metal composite actuators and sensors: thermodynamically consistent formulation and nondimensionalization of the field equations" published in Smart Material and Structures journal.  Olsen just completed his PhD…

Robert Hunt, Zakai Olsen and Kwang Kim (Mechanical Engineering) published "Thermo-mechanical response of the twisted and coiled polymer actuator (TCPA): a finite element analysis (FEA)," in the journal Smart Materials and Structures. Hunt and Olsen are doctoral graduates of UNLV.

Nazanin Minaian (Mechanical Engineering) received the Bioinspiration, Biomimetics, and Bioreplication Best Student Paper Award: second place for her paper, “Continuing the Investigation of the Sensing Response of Ionic Polymer-metal Composites: Effects of Geometry and Orientation” (11586-5) from SPIE Smart Structures + NDE 2021. Minaian…

Alexander Barzilov (Mechanical Engineering), Artem Gelis (Chemistry), and Zaijing Sun (Health Physics and Diagnostic Sciences) gave recruitment presentations and answered questions about corresponding nuclear-related programs at the 2021 ANS Virtual Student Conference last week. UNLV is among the 11 top-tier universities invited to have university…

Kwang Kim (Mechanical Engineering) was presented the 2021 SSM Lifetime Achievement award last month. The SPIE Lifetime Achievement Awards recognize senior researchers who have made significant contributions to the field of Smart Structures and Materials (SSM) or Nondestructive Evaluation (NDE) and who have been…

Alexandrea Washington, Justin Neubauer, and Kwang J. Kim (all Mechanical Engineering) provided a book chapter, "Soft Actuators and their Potential Applications in Rehabilitative Devices," that was published as part of an edited book, Soft Robotics in Rehabilitation, by Amir Fafari and Nafiseh Ebrahimi of University of Texas at San Antonio.…

Nazanin Minaian, Zakai J. Olsen, and Kwang J. Kim (all Mechanical Engineering) provided a book chapter, "Ionic Polymer-Metal Composite (IPMC) Artificial Muscle in Underwater Environments: Review of Actuatioin, Sensing, Controls, and Applications to Softrobotic," that was published as part of a new edited book, Bioinspired Sensing, Actuation,…

Shubhra Bansal (Mechanical Engineering) has received the prestigious CAREER award from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to develop novel Pb-free and stable mixed halide-chalcogenide perovskite materials for high-efficiency solar cells. Pb-based organic-inorganic hybrid perovskite solar cells (HPSCs) have shown tremendous promise with a big…

Jeremy Cho (Mechanical Engineering) co-authored a paper published in Science Advances with Jean-François Louf, Nancy B. Lu, Margaret G. O’Connell, and Sujit S. Datta of Princeton University. The paper is "Under Pressure: Hydrogel Swelling in a Granular Medium." Hydrogels, which are polymeric materials that absorb water, are often…