Short-bio: Carol Livermore is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at MIT. She received her B.S. in Physics from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst in 1993, and her A.M. and Ph.D. in Physics from Harvard in 1995 and 1998 respectively. Her research focuses on the creation of high power MEMS devices, including electric generators and chemical lasers, and on the creation of self-assembly techniques for organizing complex systems at the nanoscale.

Short-Bio: Dan Frey is an Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Engineering Systems at MIT. He is interested in experiments and their role in engineering design. In his research, he develops theories and new methods for effective use of experimentation. Prof. Frey holds a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from MIT, an MS from the University of Colorado, and a BS from RPI. Prof. Frey has earned the Baker award for undergraduate teaching (1999) and the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics teaching award (2000).

Short-bio: Anette Hosoi is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at MIT. She received her A.B. in Physics from Princeton University in 1992 and her Ph.D. in Physics from the University of Chicago in 1997. Her research interests include thin films, complex fluids, locomotion and optimization, free surfaces and fluid/structure interactions.

Short-bio: Diploma Degree in Aerodynamics (ETH Zurich), PhD in Engineering (UC Berkeley), Assistant Professor at Syracuse University, Head of the Free Molecular Flow Division at the DLR in Germany. Co-founder and first president of the German Solar Energy Society (1975), fuel cell project manager at ABB Switzerland (1987), freelance fuel cell consultant since 1990. Founder of the European Fuel Cell Forum and organizer of the Lucerne Fuel Cell Forum, an international annual event of highest reputation. Since 1973 Ulf Bossel has been one of Europe's leading figures in the renewable energy debate.

Abstract: Many arthropods detect odors by means of antennae attached to their heads. Examples include insects (moths) which are primarily land-based animals living in an aerobic environment, and crustaceans (crayfish and lobsters) which live in an aquatic environment. The odor plumes may consist of, for example, pheromones originating from a female moth to attract male moths, or from decomposing organic matter that feeds a lobster. The process of odor detection is multiscale, ranging from hundreds of meters associated with plume dispersal phenomena to the nanometer scale chemo-receptor pore sites on the sensilla. While much is known about the characteristics of plumes, antennae, sensilla and the receptor pores in their respective scale ranges, comparatively less has been said about the overlap between adjacent ranges where the “information transfer” affecting behavior takes place. The speaker will present and discuss a multi-scale physical-chemical model for odor plume detection applicable to moths in air or crayfish in water. In the case of moths, odor-elicited anemotactic behavior will be explained.

Short-bio: Joseph A.C. Humphrey is a Wade Professor of Engineering and Chair of the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at the University of Virginia. Professor Humphrey holds a PhD. from the University of London and M.Sc from the University of Toronto. He has been a recipient of Nancy and Neal Wade Professor of Engineering and Applied Science, University of Virginia (2000) and is a Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (1993). He is listed in the Who's Who of Science and Engineering (1991-) and Who's Who in the World (1995-). He has over 120 archive journal and 90 conference papers on government/industry-funded experimental and theoretical investigations of flow, heat and mass transfer phenomena: application of laser-Doppler velocimetry and flow visualization techniques; computational fluid mechanics; turbulence modeling; buoyancy-, curvature-, and rotation- driven instabilities and transition to turbulence.

Abstract: Engineering design presents many challenges, both immediate (e.g., How can a desired function be provided within the power, volume and mass constraints) and deep (e.g., Is design fundamentally informal in nature, or is there underlying structure to the process. How much modularity is beneficial in designs). Nowhere are these many challenges more urgently apparent than in the design of interplanetary exploration spacecraft. In this environment, there are not only all of the challenges of design for terrestrial operation, but additionally our knowledge of the environment in which the spacecraft perform is incomplete, and the ability to prototype and test is extremely limited. The full slate of unknowns (as with any design) is complicated by "unknown unknowns": those hazardous conditions and failure modes that cannot be anticipated, but despite which the spacecraft must operate successfully. 
In the face of these difficulties, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory has a distinguished and rich (but not unblemished) history of success, including the successful landing of the Mars Pathfinder spacecraft and Sojourner Rover on July 4, 1997, and the Mars Exploration Rovers on January 3, and January 24, 2004. The Laboratory is now well into the highly successful extended operations of the rovers. This talk will present an overview of the engineering design of the Mars Exploration Rovers, with a simulation of the mission from launch through landing and roving, and an update on the latest status on Mars.

Short-bio: Dr. Erik Antonsson is a Professor of Mechanical Engineering at theCalifornia Institute of Technology in Pasadena, CA, U.S.A Dr. Antonsson is currently on leave from Caltech serving as the Chief Technologist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). He earned a B.S. degree in Mechanical Engineering with distinction fromCornell University in 1976, and a Ph.D. in mechanical Engineering fromMassachusetts Institute of Technology in 1982. He was an NSF Presidential Young Investigator (1986-1992), and won the 1995 Richard P. Feynman Prize for Excellence in Teaching, and is a co-winner of the 2001 TRW Distinguished Patent Award. 
Dr. Antonsson is a Fellow of the ASME and a member of the IEEE, SME, SAE, ACM, ASEE, IFSA, and NAFIPS. Dr. Antonsson is currently on the editorial board of the InternationalJournal: Research in Engineering Design, and served on theeditorial board of Fuzzy Sets and Systems from 1997 through 2004,and from 1989 to 1993 served as an Associate Technical Editor of the ASME Journal of Mechanical Design, with responsibility for the DesignResearch and the Design Theory and Methodology area. He served as the Executive Officer (Chair) of Mechanical engineering from 1998 to 2002, as a member of the Faculty Board of theCalifornia Institute of Technology (2001-2004), and as a memberof the Caltech/MIT Voting Technology Project (2001-2002). He has published over 100 scholarly papers in the engineering design research literature, has edited two books, and holds six U.S. Patents. He is a Registered Professional Engineer in California, and serves as an engineering design consultant to industry, research laboratories and tothe Intellectual Property bar.

Short-bio: Brent Fultz is a professor at California Insititute of Technology in the Division of Engineering and Applied Science. Professor Fultz holds a Ph.D. in Engineering Science, from University of California, Berkeley. He is a recipient of Presidential Young Investigator Award. Profesor Brent Fultz and his group have been involved over the past few years, in performing an increasing number of experiments at national user facilities that supply intense photon and neutronbeams.

Short-bio: Peter So is an associate professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Division of Biological Engineering. Professor So holds a Ph.D. from Princeton University . His research area is primarily Fluorescence microscopy and spectroscopy instrumentations, Deep tissue imaging, Functional imaging of cellular systems, Single Protein Dynamics, Bio-micromechanics.

Short-bio: Gareth McKinley is a professor at Massachusetts Insititute of Technology in the Mechanical Engineering Department. Professor McKinley holds a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering , from M.I.T.  He is a recipient of the Frenkiel Award of the APS Division of Fluid Dynamics in 2002 and was the Technical Program Chair at the 74th Annual Meeting in the Society of Rheology in 2001. Profesor McKinley holds the position of a Director, -'Program in Polymer Science & Technology' at MIT.

Unfortunately a new battle has emerged. It is the battle to combat environmental change due to carbon dioxide, a non-toxic, biologically productive, largely inert byproduct of fossil fuel usage. Of course this challenge is not really new; we have known of the greenhouse effect for decades and much study and debate has surrounded the potential of carbon dioxide to cause significant global warming. But what has perhaps not been sufficiently appreciated is the magnitude of effort required to reduce the risk of climate change. It is a problem of a scale beyond any which humankind has ever tackled.

The question is: What can be done. Answers include political, industrial, societal, and technical aspects. In this lecture an attempt is made to outline the scope and magnitude of the problem and areas where technical progress may help contribute to a solution. No attempt is made to be comprehensive, but instead a number of examples are cited where there may be the potential for our community to contribute to resolving the grand challenge of the twenty-first century.

Short-bio: Christopher Francis Edwards, an associate professor in the thermosciences division of the Department of Mechanical Engineering, has been a member of Stanford???s faculty since 1995. He is the Director of the Advanced Energy Systems Laboratory and was recently named the John Henry Samter University Fellow in Undergraduate Education.

Edwards received his masters and doctoral degrees from the University of California-Berkeley in 1982 and 1985, respectively. His research is in the area of spray dynamics and combustion, using a combination of theory and experimentation to improve our understanding of two-phase combustion systems and to generate new, more efficient and cleaner ways to generate power or achieve propulsion. His research includes the development of next-generation strategies for gas turbine and piston engines and other advanced energy systems.

Edwards has won numerous awards for teaching and research, including the Undergraduate Teaching Prize from the Stanford chapter of Phi Beta Kappa in 1999 and the Bing Fellowship for outstanding undergraduate teaching in 1998. He received the Frederick E. Terman Fellowship and the Powell Fellowship in 1997. In 1994, he won the Adams Award from Sandia National Laboratories, where he was a Distinguished Member of Technical Staff before coming to Stanford.