BiSSL MS students Samuel Blair and Garrett Hairston were awarded a J. Mike Walker ’66 Department of Mechanical Engineering Graduate Summer Research Grant for Summer 2021 for their proposals titled: “Ecological Systems Approach to Understanding Makerspace Networks” and “Ecological-modularity as inspiration for community-scale net zero achievement,” respectively. Congratulations Samuel and Garrett!
award
Dr. Layton awarded the Peggy L. & Chares Brittan ’65 Outstanding Undergraduate Teaching Award
The 2021 Undergraduate Teaching Award for the Mechanical Engineering department was awarded to Dr. Astrid Layton in recognition of her undergraduate teaching excellence. Since joining the department in 2017, she has taught the following courses: MEEN 344 Fluid Mechanics, MEEN 401 Senior Design (studio & lecture), and MEEN 440/696 Bio-Inspired Engineering Design.
Fall 2020 J. Mike Walker ’66 Department of Mechanical Engineering Graduate Excellence Fellowship
Congratulations to BiSSL PhD student Abheek Chatterjee for winning a J. Mike Walker ’66 Department of Mechanical Engineering Graduate Excellence Fellowship for continuing students for the Fall 2020 semester! The highly competitive graduate scholarship awards graduate students doing excellent research, academic performance, and leadership in the department.
BiSSL PhD student Abheek Chatterjee wins “Best Paper” award for his 2020 IDETC-CIE conference paper!
Abheek his paper was written in collaboration with Dr. Richard Malak, in CIE’s SEIKM division titled “Exploring a Bio-Inspired System of Systems Resilience vs. Affordability Tradespace“
Abstract: “The objective of this study is to investigate the value of an ecologically inspired architectural metric called the Degree of System Order in the System of Systems (SoS) architecting process. Two highly desirable SoS attributes are the ability to withstand and recover from disruptions (resilience) and affordability. In practice, more resilient SoS architectures are less affordable and it is essential to balance the trade-offs between the two attributes. Ecological research analyzing long-surviving ecosystems (nature’s resilient SoS) using the Degree of System Order metric has found a unique balance of efficient and redundant interactions in their architecture. This balance implies that highly efficient ecosystems tend to be inflexible and vulnerable to perturbations while highly redundant ecosystems fail to utilize resources effectively for survival. Motivated by this unique architectural property of ecosystems, this study investigates the response to disruptions vs. affordability trade-space of a large number of feasible SoS architectures. Results indicate that the most favorable SoS architectures in this trade-space share a specific range of values of Degree of System Order. This suggests that Degree of System Order can be a key metric is engineered SoS development. Evaluating the Degree of System Order does not require detailed simulations and can, therefore, guide the early stage SoS design process towards more optimal SoS architectures.”
A. Chatterjee, R. Malak, and A. Layton, “Exploring a Bio-Inspired System of Systems Resilience vs. Affordability Tradespace,” presented at the ASME 2020 International Design Engineering Technical Conference, virtual, 2020.
J. Mike Walker ’66 Department of Mechanical Engineering Graduate Summer Research Grant
BiSSL PhD student Abheek Chatterjee was awarded a J. Mike Walker ’66 Department of Mechanical Engineering Graduate Summer Research Grant for Summer 2020 for his proposal titled: “Ecology-inspired design of resilient and affordable System of Systems.” Congratulations Abheek!
J. Mike Walker Department of Mechanical Engineering Fellowships and Scholarships
J. Mike Walker Department of Mechanical Engineering Fellowships and Scholarships. So incredibly proud of all of our BiSSL research students! Last week’s fellowships and scholarships awards dinner for the J. Mike Walker Department of Mechanical Engineering was an honor to attend, to celebrate all of our department’s diverse and accomplished students!
- Tirth Dave was awarded a Graduate Student Fellowship
- Abheek Chatterjee was awarded an Emil Buehler Aerodynamic Analog Fellowship
- Colton Brehm was awarded a Graduate Excellence Fellowship
- Varun Panyam was awarded a Graduate Excellence Fellowship
- Shelby Warrington won the James J. Cain ’51 Award
- Kristina Viro won the J. Mike Walker ’66 Impact Award
Fall 2019 J. Mike Walker ’66 Department of Mechanical Engineering Graduate Excellence Fellowships
Congratulations to two of our BiSSL graduate research students, Ph.D. student Abheek Chatterjee and Masters student Tirth Dave, for winning the J. Mike Walker ’66 Department of Mechanical Engineering Graduate Excellence Fellowship for continuing students for the Fall 2019 semester! The highly competitive graduate scholarship awards graduate students doing excellent research, academic performance, and leadership in the department.
BiSSL Grad Student Finalist for the Leo Best Paper Award at CIRP-Life Cycle Engineering
BiSSL MS student Colton Brehm was a finalist for the Leo Award for best paper for his CIRP Life Cycle Engineering conference paper “Designing eco-industrial parks in a nested structure to mimic mutualistic ecological networks.”
Abstract: Industrial Ecology uses ecological systems as a guide for improving the sustainability of complex industrial systems. Eco-Industrial Parks (EIPs) have gained support as a solution that seeks to simultaneously reduce environmental burdens and promote economic interests by exchanging materials and energy between industries to their mutual benefit. Recent studies have focused on drawing relations between food webs (FWs) and EIPs to improve the sustainability of the latter using ecological metrics, such as the level of cycling or average connections between actors. This study incorporates a new ecological metric, nestedness, into the discussion of sustainable design for EIPs. The association of nestedness with mutualistic ecological networks supports its application to EIP design. The work here improves the understanding of holistic network structure with the goal of improving future design decisions for EIPs with purposeful placement of material and energy flows.
The full paper is available here.
BiSSL Grad Student Associate Fellow in the A&M Academy for Future Faculty
Congratulations to BiSSL grad student Varuneswara Panyam who became an Associate Fellow in the Center for the Integration of Research, Teaching, and Learning (CIRTL) Academy for Future Faculty (AFF) at Texas A&M.
The Academy for Future Faculty (AFF) is a CIRTL@TAMU program. The Center for the Integration of Research, Teaching, and Learning (CIRTL) is a National Science Foundation (NSF) Center for Learning and Teaching in higher education. The CIRTL mission is to enhance excellence in undergraduate education through the development of a national faculty committed to implementing and advancing effective teaching practices for diverse learners as part of successful and varied professional careers.
AFF provides professional development for graduate students and post-docs in preparation for a career in higher education. AFF offers a two-semester program anchored by faculty mentorship and featuring weekly seminars and workshops. AFF events are free and open to everyone in the Texas A&M University academic community. Participants may choose to attend a few events or enough to complete requirements for the Academy for Future Faculty Fellow certificate. New fellows are recognized at our annual banquet in April.
BiSSL Grad Student Colton Brehm Nominated for the Leo Award for Best Paper
Congratulations to BiSSL MS student Colton Brehm! His conference paper for the 26th CIRP Life Cycle Engineering Conference on Advancing Industrial Sustainability, to be held at Purdue University May 2019, is nominated for the Leo Award for best paper!
“Designing eco-industrial parks in a nested structure to mimic mutualistic ecological networks,” first authored by Colton Brehm
Industrial Ecology uses ecological systems as a guide for improving the sustainability of complex industrial systems. Eco-Industrial Parks (EIPs) have gained support as a solution that seeks to simultaneously reduce environmental burdens and promote economic interests by exchanging materials and energy between industries to their mutual benefit. Recent studies have focused on drawing relations between food webs (FWs) and EIPs to improve the sustainability of the latter using ecological metrics, such as the level of cycling or average connections between actors. This study incorporates a new ecological metric, nestedness, into the discussion of sustainable design for EIPs. The association of nestedness with mutualistic ecological networks supports its application to EIP design. The work here improves the understanding of holistic network structure with the goal of improving future design decisions for EIPs with purposeful placement of material and energy flows.
BiSSL: Bio-inspired Systems Lab 