The Brown University School of
Engineering hosted the 2012 New England Workshop on the Mechanics of Materials and Structures on November 3, 2012, at the Granoff Center with nearly 200 participants. Building on the momentum of past workshops, it was another successful installment of NewMech with participants travelling from all over New England and New York.
The one-day workshop brought
together the New England Mechanics community with an interest in exploring new
directions on the mechanics of materials and structures and sharing the latest
advancements in the field. The event, open to the public free of cost, included
four invited lectures from leading experts in the field and presented an
opportunity for young scientists to highlight their research in the form of
presentations, posters and movies.
One of the highlights of the workshop was the poster competition with 41 entries submitted. Each poster was judged on scientific contribution, clarity and structure, originality, and appearance. Peng Chen of Brown University won first place, while Michael Bartlett of UMass captured second place. There was a tie for third place between Alice Nasto of MIT and Ramin Oftadeh of Northeastern.
In addition, the workshop featured a new component, the “Gallery of Mechanics”. This event included movies that display research in the New England mechanics community. Ten movies were submitted and awards were presented to the top three entries. The first place winner was James Hanna of UMass. There was a tie for second place between Daniel Chen of Brandeis and Jonathan Pham of UMass.
The workshop was possible through the generous support of The Haythornthwaite Foundation, and Brown University’s Starr Lectureship Fund, Office of the Vice President for Research and the School of Engineering, and was organized locally by Christian Franck and Shreyas Mandre, assistant professors of engineering at Brown, and by Pedro Reis (MIT), Ken Kamrin (MIT), Katia Bertoldi (Harvard), Christian Santangelo (UMass), and Ashkan Vaziri (Northeastern).
Next year’s NewMech workshop will be held at Northeastern University. For more information, please go to: http://www.brown.edu/conferences/new-england-mechanics-materials-structures/
