Mechanical Science and Engineering at Illinois

09/01/2026

Check out the recent renovation of the John Deere Pavilion and other conference rooms in the Mechanical Engineering Laboratory!

09/01/2026

Happening tomorrow! Sign ups are still open here: https://forms.illinois.edu/sec/1491976656?referrer=https://shibboleth.illinois.edu/

08/24/2026

Incoming students spent two weeks on campus this summer in the ARISE Summer Bridge Program, a preparatory experience built to strengthen critical thinking, problem solving, math, and engineering skills before the fall semester begins. On the first day, students attended presentations introducing them to the departments and majors available to them before moving into hands-on work.

In the Motion Session, 24 students interested in MechSE, AE, and ISE majors designed and iterated a balsa wood glider, then built and refined a PVC pneumatic launcher. They also took on an optimization challenge called "pack your plane," working out the best and worst things to bring to college and learning how problem formulation shapes the quality of a solution. The session closed with a Shark Tank style pitch of their designs at the ARISE Expo, where students from every session shared what they had built.

In the Information Session, 24 students interested in ECE and CS majors learned to solder, run copper tape, work with electronic components, and program in Arduino to control LEDs, motors, and photoresistors, ultimately building a bio-inspired robot. Students also visited the MNMS cleanroom to pattern a silicon wafer.

Thanks to Stephanie Ott-Monsivais for leading the program, and to the faculty, staff, and students who made it happen: Samridh Singh, Kevin Wandke, Justin Yim, Brian Woodard, Stephanie Sims, James Rhyne, Joe Maduzia, Ranveer Singh, EJ Ignacio, graduate student Sadman Sakib, and undergraduates Sergio Bahena, Ailyah Benson, Daniel Kesse, Emily Hernandez, and Shantal Urbina.

Learn more: https://arise.grainger.illinois.edu/admitted-students/events

08/24/2026

Innovation News Network has featured the Roadmap for In-Space Manufacturing of Resilient Structures Workshop, hosted by the Center for In-Space Manufacturing of Resilient Structures (SpaceMaRS), including work presented by MechSE professor Sameh Tawfick, a principal investigator with the center.

Tawfick presented on Mission Illinois, which will demonstrate an energy-efficient curing process aboard the International Space Station to manufacture carbon fiber composite structures. Those pieces are meant to serve as building blocks for large structures built in orbit, such as next-generation space telescopes and antennas.

Read the full article:

Experts developed roadmaps for robotic assembly, lunar habitats, and demonstration infrastructure to advance space manufacturing

08/21/2026

08/21/2026

A warm welcome to our incoming cohort of MS and PhD students! Today marks the start of an exciting journey at Illinois. Work hard, take care of yourself, and don't forget to go to a football game!

08/18/2026

The eight-part film series MechSE Communications produced on the coral reef research project led by MechSE professor Amy Wagoner Johnson is now on view at Krannert Art Museum.

The exhibit includes an interactive multimedia display that invites visitors to "choose their own adventure" and explore different aspects of the research project. The videos include footage of engineers and scientists conducting fieldwork in Curacao, as well as experiments being run in Newmark Civil Engineering Laboratory.

This interactive video experience is part of "Stitching Ecologies: Urbana-Champaign Satellite Crochet Coral Reef," on display through October 24. Admission to the Krannert Art Museum is free, and the museum is open Tuesday-Saturday 10am-5pm.

Learn more: https://kam.illinois.edu/exhibition/stitching-ecologies-urbana-champaign-satellite-crochet-coral-reef

08/17/2026

The Siebel Center for Design is celebrating 10 years of teaching and modeling human-centered design. This dynamic multimedia piece by The Grainger College of Engineering includes how the center has helped change MechSE's design curriculum.

"MechSE professor Kellie Halloran said that adding human-centered design elements made her students more innovative. The roughly 500 students who take her ME 170 class, Computer-Aided Design, each year are told to redesign or design a consumer product from scratch. The open-ended project has often resulted in ideas that were impossible to implement or had already been done many times.

Emeritus MechSE professor Michael Philpott first introduced human-centered design to ME 170. Working with the Siebel Center team, Halloran has continued to develop the curriculum through additional activities and reflections. Students now spend three weeks thinking about consumer products they use and interview people about pain points in their lives. The students then synthesize the interviews and ponder solutions."

Read more: https://grainger.illinois.edu/news/stories/putting-human-back-engineering

Siebel Center for Design
The Grainger College of Engineering

The Missing Piece of Innovation: Putting the human back in engineering

08/10/2026

The Grainger College of Engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign has named Founder Professor Nenad Miljkovic the new head of the Department of Mechanical Science and Engineering, effective August 16, 2026.

He succeeds Richard W. Kritzer Professor Anthony M. Jacobi, who has served as department head since 2015.

Miljkovic takes the reins of one of the world’s premier engineering departments at a time of substantial growth in student enrollment as well as a juncture in crucial areas of research impacting society, including artificial intelligence, autonomy, digital manufacturing, thermal and fluid science, sustainable energy solutions, and more — all of which are fundamentally supported by the fields of mechanical engineering and applied mechanics.

“I am incredibly excited about the many opportunities that lie ahead for our great department. MechSE is already a department of extraordinary people and ideas. My goal is to build on that foundation — fostering a culture where collaboration and bold thinking drive us toward discoveries that matter," said Miljkovic.

“My initial focus will be to listen and learn and seek advice from all stakeholders of MechSE. I hope that we can work together on maintaining and raising excellence at every level, increasing our research impact and research intensity, and cultivating our departmental culture to be even more supportive while expanding and deepening our valued principles of shared governance. I look forward to working closely with everyone to help move our department forward.”

Miljkovic earned his PhD in mechanical engineering in 2013 from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He joined MechSE as an assistant professor in 2014 and was promoted to associate professor in 2019 and professor in 2022. Prior to becoming head, he served as director of the Air Conditioning and Refrigeration Center (ACRC) at Illinois and currently holds affiliate positions in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering; Institute for Sustainability, Energy, and Environment (iSEE); Materials Research Laboratory; and the International Institute for Carbon Neutral Energy Research (I2CNER).

Read more:

Illinois ECE University of Illinois Institute for Sustainability, Energy and Environment Illinois Materials Research Laboratory

“I am incredibly excited about the many opportunities that lie ahead for our great department,

08/04/2026

MechSE teaching assistant professor Kevin Wandke has been named an Engineering Unleashed Fellow for 2026. The designation recognizes leadership in undergraduate engineering education.

Engineering Unleashed is a community of over 7,000 members from 420 institutions of higher education, powered by KEEN, a 70-partner collaborative that shares a mission to graduate engineers with an entrepreneurial mindset who are equipped to create societal, personal and economic value for others.

This year, 30 individuals from 23 higher education institutions across the country were named Engineering Unleashed Fellows.

For years, Illinois and The Grainger College of Engineering has had a symbiotic partnership with KEEN (Kern Entrepreneurial Engineering Network). The program is part of the Kern Family Foundation, which was established in 1998 by MechSE alum Robert Kern (BSME 1947) and his wife, Patricia. The late Kern, who also founded Generac Power Systems, is said to have developed an anecdotal taxonomy of the qualities of good engineers from his decades-long career. Kern sold Generac in 2006 to focus on philanthropic efforts, which led to KEEN’s development. MechSE teaching associate professor Blake Johnson has previously been the recipient of a KEEN fellowship.

Read more:

MechSE prof. Kevin Wandke was one of just 30 educators nationwide to win an Engineering Unleashed Fellowship through KEEN, a program of the Kern Family Foundation. He will use the grant to continue his work developing a framework for AI chatbots to function as stakeholders in some engineering design...