Swanson School of Engineering

Slippery floors cause thousands of workplace injuries every year, and a team at the Swanson School of Engineering just slid their way into a best paper award for studying how to fix that. ⚠️

Henry Ing (BS BioE ‘22, MS ‘24), Kurt Beschorner, and Tevis Jacobs validated a model that predicts how much friction exists between a shoe sole and a floor surface when a contaminant like oil is present. Along with co-authors Anna Randolph, Vimanyu Chadha, Ph.D., and Ky Reifler, the team received the 2025 Best Paper Award from the ASME (American Society of Mechanical Engineers) Journal of Tribology for their work this spring.

Read more about the winning paper below! 👟

🔗 https://news.engineering.pitt.edu/slick-science/

This April, 55 members of Pitt’s ASCE Student Chapter competed at the ASCE Mid-Atlantic Student Symposium, and the collective effort paid off. The team designed and built bridges, surveyed land, solved problems, and created and raced a concrete canoe – and won first place overall! Congratulations! https://news.engineering.pitt.edu/building-momentum-community-bridges-and-the-andy-war-hull/

Right before submitting his application to Pitt, Jonathon (Jack) Bender changed his intended major to engineering. Now in his third year as a chemical engineering student, he can be found, quite literally, all over Benedum Hall – mentoring, making rubies, or even transforming a 3D printer. https://news.engineering.pitt.edu/an-exponential-cascade-upwards-and-out/

Pitt researchers Melissa Bilec, Federica Geremicca, and John Brigham, with UCF’s Alessandro Fascetti, have built an interactive digital twin of Pitt’s Mascaro Center that allows users to “walk” through the building and assess energy use, air quality, and the materials in real time. Their research is advancing how we build, maintain, and automate buildings more sustainably. https://news.engineering.pitt.edu/digital-twin-studies/

Join the Department of Bioengineering for the Annual "Be Like B" 5K! 🏃‍♀️‍➡️

Inspired by Distinguished Professor and former Bioengineering Department Chair, Harvey Borovetz, Graduate BMES is hosting this fundraiser on June 6th, 10:30am to 1:00 pm at the Drug Discovery Institute (700 Technology Dr, Pittsburgh).

All proceeds benefit the Best of the Batch Foundation, an organization dedicated to unlocking potential in communities to build the best future for kids and families by providing choices, motivation, and education.

Details:
• $10 / person
• Refreshments included 🍽️
• Bring your furry friends 🐾
• Prizes for top finishers, best pet, and most creative race name 🏆

RSVP by May 26th, and contact us with any questions!

🔗 https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdoBJT8l5sb9zgZ0mvchTZmJVZys6oF_gLDSa3AP6wEQ_FNWw/viewform

Pitt’s own Kent Harries recently joined British TV producer and director Tom Gorham on the YouTube channel “Why Stuff Fails” to discuss the collapse of Pittsburgh’s Fern Hollow Bridge and what it teaches us about design, inspection, and maintenance. https://news.engineering.pitt.edu/why-a-pittsburgh-bridge-failed/

Congratulations to Pitt’s Soumik Chakraborty! He was awarded a prestigious SMART Scholarship by the U.S. Department of War, which covers tuition and provides an annual stipend, an internship, and guaranteed employment after graduation. https://news.engineering.pitt.edu/pitts-soumik-chakraborty-receives-smart-scholarship/

For every professor who has boarded a plane and crossed many time zones to take a sabbatical, there are others who stayed in the United States or who found a way to do both, to travel abroad and conduct research closer to home. In this second of a three-part series, Pitt professors Richard Debski, Christopher Wilmer, Anne M. Robertson, and Mark Redfern reflect on spending time somewhere new, researching something new. https://news.engineering.pitt.edu/something-new-somewhere-new/

The 12th edition of Ingenium: The Journal of Undergraduate Research, is hot off the press! Congratulations to this years undergrad researchers and thanks to the editorial team for their hard work!

2026 Pitt Ingenium Journal of Undergraduate Research Dive into our extensive resources on the topic that interests you. It's like a masterclass to be explored at your own pace.

Since 2019, the challenge of creating an autonomous robot sailboat from scratch has drawn students across majors, backgrounds, and experience with sailing and robotics to join Pitt SailBot. In June, the club will take its sailbot to Ithaca, NY, to participate in the annual SailBot regatta. https://news.engineering.pitt.edu/the-robot-sets-sail/