Left: BME graduate student Carol Chancey models neck muscles, and consults with the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration on their next generation of crash-test dummies.
Middle: Matthew Johannes and Sophia Santillan were two of five Duke mechanical engineering and materials science graduate students who took part in Animal Planet's new reality TV series Chasing Nature, which premiered in the fall of 2005. In each episode, the program challenges a team of four mechanical engineering students to design and build a mechanical device that mimics what an animal can do naturally. Students were flown to Australia for a week to tape their segment.
Right: Biomedical engineering graduate student Kityee Au-Yeung is building a pacemaker-like implant that will help monitor and study atrial fibrillation, a common cardiac disorder. To build it, she has had to study existing literature on similar research, determine her device's major functions, design and build a prototype, and test it.
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Justin Jaworski exemplifies the common belief that music and mathematics are not as distinct as they might appear on the surface.
The fourth-year graduate student whose interests lie in studying the phenomenon of flutter in flexible objects such as airplane wings or bridges is also a consummate singer, having spent his undergraduate and graduate years singing with Chapel Choir, the Vespers Choir and the Duke University Chorale.
“Music is a great combination of math and creativity, the ...
Pratt Undergraduate Research Fellow Sebastian Liska imagines a day when airplane wings might fold themselves up during flight, not unlike the flexible wings of a bird. That quality would give planes the adaptability to complete complicated, multitask missions.
"You might enhance fuel efficiency with extended wings and increase maneuverability with shorter wings," Liska said. "As you change configurations, the plane would become more stable and efficient for particular conditions."
Liska is working in the laboratory of William ...
As a Pratt Undergraduate Research Fellow, Chelsea He is working on a project designed to deliver more peace and quiet to people traveling by air in the future. She is examining the structural acoustics of airplanes and experimenting with materials that might dampen the racket that results from the vibration of the aircraft, the engine and the flow of air over planes.
"I've always been interested in aerospace and aerodynamics and finding a way to achieve ...
As a Pratt Undergraduate Research Fellow in the laboratory of J.A. Jones Distinguished Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering Nan Marie Jokerst, Melissa Levy is a member of a team designing a hand-held “lab on a chip” capable of detecting the parasite responsible for malaria in a single drop of blood, among other applications. Such a malaria detector would have particular advantages in the developing world countries where people are most at risk for ...
Cyrus Amoozegar, a Pratt Undergraduate Research Fellow in the laboratory of Biomedical Engineering Professor Adam Wax, is working to improve a new, light-based method of early cancer detection. The technology, known as “angle-resolved low coherence interferometry” (a/LCI), can distinguish between cancer and non-cancer by measuring features within the cells that cover the outer surfaces of organs, where most cancers get their start.
"It's superior because it is completely non-invasive," Amoozegar said. "Now, doctors have to take ...
Liza Crabtree, a Pratt Undergraduate Research Fellow and civil and environmental engineering major, is working to understand the flaws that can develop in so-called stimulus-responsive hydrogels. These ‘smart gels,’ which look essentially like Jello, can be made to undergo dramatic transformation in response to changes in their surroundings, including pH and temperature. Thanks to those unique abilities, hydrogels are now poised to become integral mechanical components and sensors in the increasingly tiny devices of the ...
Yvonne Yamanaka, a biomedical engineering major and Pratt Undergraduate Research Fellow, is developing a method for incorporating the genes encoding insulin into cells of the intestine, a promising new method for the treatment of diabetes. Unlike earlier approaches to gene therapy, which rely on viruses to insert new genes into cells, her research in the laboratory of Biomedical Engineering Professor Kam Leong aims to make gene therapies as easy as popping a pill. Such oral ...
This article is part of Summer Stories, a special, online issue of Dukengineer Magazine, in which students wrote about their experiences in the Summer of 2007 during their time away from Duke.
by Patrick Ye, BME ‘10
This past summer, I was one of six students on a Duke Engineers Without Borders team that traveled to Uganda. Our goal was to build a rainwater harvesting system to supply a community with a clean and reliable source of ...
