Jacqueline O’ Connor, assistant professor of mechanical engineering; graduate students Meghan Borz, Wyatt Culler, Sam Hansford, and Anand Makwana; and undergraduate student Joe Crane discuss their research in the Reacting Flow Dynamics Laboratory.

The lab focuses on issues of reacting flows for energy and propulsion applications. High-speed laser diagnostics and other state-of-the-art experimental techniques are used in research areas such as combustion, hydrodynamic instability, and thermoacoustics.

Igor Jovanovic, associate professor of nuclear engineering; Kyle Hartig and Bryan Morgan, nuclear engineering gradate students; and Scott Wandel, nuclear engineering doctoral candidate discuss how the Intense Laser Laboratory helps in their research to enhance the use of intense ultrafast lasers in science, industry, and security.

Reuben Kraft, Shuman Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering, and Rebecca Fielding, Teja Garimella, and Allison Ranslow, mechanical engineering graduate students, discuss the Computational Biomechanics Group at Penn State. The researchers are focused on understanding the mechanics and physics of biological systems using computational methods in three broad areas: 1) multiphysics, multiscale computational mechanics and methods, 2) problems at the interface of biology and multiscale mechanics, and 3) humans in extreme environments.