Mechanical Science and Engineering at Illinois

Congratulations to MechSE Assistant Professor Justin Yim on earning the inaugural 2026 Aviation Week Space Tech Challenge Award in the University Programs category!

Yim's project, LEAP (Legged Exploration Across the Plume), was recognized for its innovative approach to planetary exploration. Supported by NASA's Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) program, LEAP is a multimodal robot that combines jumping and rolling locomotion to explore challenging extraterrestrial environments, including Saturn's moon Enceladus. LEAP achieves its extraordinary range of motion through a single powerful jumping leg combined with two large, angled wheels that serve triple duty: as reaction wheels for attitude control during flight, as protective bumpers on impact and as rolling wheels for ground travel.

The award was presented at the Space Tech Expo USA in Anaheim, where Justin learned that LEAP received the second-highest score across all five competition categories, finishing just behind Varda Space Industries—a company currently flying and recovering spacecraft. Aviation Week noted that this was "a remarkable result for a university team competing alongside fielded commercial technologies."

The Space Tech Challenge attracted 50 submissions from startups, established aerospace companies, and university research teams around the world, with entries evaluated by an independent panel of industry experts.

See LEAP in action in NASA's recent video:: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWjClzODZjo

Check out MechSE's video feature on LEAP from last summer: https://youtu.be/rswSKe4Rw78

Players at the World Cup are wearing friction-engineered shoes made with microstructure technology from the lab of MechSE professor Bill King.

Almost 20 years ago, King developed techniques for manufacturing polymers with engineered surfaces that have a powerful feature: controllable friction.

Today, the Adidas shoes incorporate pillar-shaped microstructures made with the technology developed in King’s lab. As a result, the friction between the shoe and the ball changes depending on the force applied by the player.

“My lab first worked on polymer microstructure fabrication back in the mid-2000s when the science was quite new,” King said. “Since then, it has grown into a mature technology used in healthcare, transportation and now athletic wear. Sometimes the biggest advantages come from the smallest things — in this case, microstructures.”

When King first began researching polymer microstructures, it was in the context of microelectronics fabrication. However, he realized that it was possible to scale the technology in a way that makes microstructures feasible for consumer products. His lab received funding from DARPA, the Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation to develop the manufacturing techniques.

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Illinois Grainger Tech Takes the Field of the World Cup World Cup players will wear friction-engineered shoes made with microstructure technology from the lab of Illinois Grainger Engineering professor Bill King.

Each academic year, The Grainger College of Engineering selects one student for the Andrea J. Culumber Memorial Award based on their leadership skills, enthusiasm, creativity and kindness. The award recipient is also someone considered to be innovative and encourages others to become involved on campus.

The Culumber Award was established in memory of Grainger Engineering alumna Andrea J. Culumber, who received her bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering in 1997. Andrea was heavily involved in student activities across campus and was an excellent role model for other students.

This year’s winner was mechanical engineering undergraduate Grace Deane. The rising senior, who is also a James Scholar and Chancellor’s Scholar, will earn a minor in business when she graduates in May 2027.

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Deane's leadership, involvement recognized with college award Rising ME senior Grace Deane received this year's Andrea J. Culumber Memorial Award from The Grainger College of Engineering. She has put in the work to make the most of her time at Illinois. “As an undergraduate student, I have tried my best to take advantage of every opportunity on campus to imm...

An impressive group of graduate students from MechSE were selected to the 2026-27 cohort of Mavis Future Faculty Fellows (MF3).

The MF3 program in The Grainger College of Engineering facilitates the training of the next generation of great engineering faculty, focusing on three main components of research, teaching, and mentoring. MF3 Fellows have an opportunity to develop and enhance their skills in these core areas through various professional development activities in preparation for a successful academic career.

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Seven ME graduate students named Mavis Future Faculty Fellows MF3 Fellows in The Grainger College of Engineering have an opportunity to develop and enhance their skills in the core areas of research, teaching, and mentoring through various professional development activities in preparation for a successful academic career.

From device fabrication and process development to testing and characterization, the MechSE MNMS Cleanroom supports research and development for academic and industrial partners.

Located in the Sidney Lu Mechanical Engineering Building at Illinois, the facility provides a comprehensive environment for micro- and nano-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS and NEMS) research, prototyping, fabrication, and testing.

The 3,800-square-foot suite includes:

• Three cleanroom laboratories, including one Class 100 cleanroom and two Class 1000 cleanrooms
• More than 40 instruments supporting fabrication, characterization, and testing workflows
• Equipment and capabilities that support a wide range of MEMS and NEMS applications
• 24/7/365 access for approved users

Whether you're developing new devices, refining manufacturing processes, characterizing materials, or advancing emerging technologies, the MNMS Cleanroom provides the facilities and technical resources needed to support innovation from concept to validation.

Learn more about the facility and its capabilities: https://cleanroom.mechse.illinois.edu/

A research team led by Professor Nenad Miljkovic in The Grainger College of Engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign has published a breakthrough study in Nature Physics. The work reports the first experimental discovery of a previously unknown frost propagation mechanism—a “suspended ice bridge”—offering new pathways for anti-frosting surface design.

Frost formation plays a critical role in many engineering systems, including air-source heat pumps, refrigeration systems and aerospace applications. At the microscopic level, frost mainly spreads through the formation of “ice bridges” that connect neighboring supercooled liquid droplets, enabling freezing to propagate rapidly across a surface. For decades, these ice bridges were widely assumed to grow along the solid surface.

This assumption, largely based on conventional top-view imaging, has shaped existing theoretical models and anti-frosting strategies. However, the Illinois team’s study reveals that this long-held view is incomplete.

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Illinois researchers discover new mechanism to suppress frost spreading New research from the lab of Prof. Nenad Miljkovic establishes a clear link between microscopic ice bridge behavior and macroscopic system performance, providing a new framework for anti-frosting design in energy systems. Their work challenges a long-held view that

MechSE alum Joe Tanner (BSME 1973) was inducted into NASA's Astronaut Hall of Fame on May 16, 2026, alongside fellow astronaut Tom Akers.

“It was a surreal weekend for us,” Tanner said of the ceremony (which included fellow astronaut Tom Akers). “We had to pinch ourselves often to make sure it was really happening. I am very honored to have joined that elite group of my friends.”

Learn more about Tanner and his journey from Illinois undergrad to celebrated astronaut: https://mechse.illinois.edu/news/stories/81306

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
The Grainger College of Engineering
NASA - National Aeronautics and Space Administration

An international research team has been developing a low-cost, wearable wireless system design to monitor the human knee during rehabilitation.

The ongoing collaboration includes The Grainger College of Engineering professor Elizabeth Hsiao-Wecksler (mechanical science and engineering) and associate professor Girish Krishnan (industrial and enterprise systems engineering), Dr. Phuong Cao from Illinois’ National Center for Supercomputing Applications - NCSA, and assistant professor Mai Thanh Thai from the College of Engineering and Computer Science at Vietnam’s VinUniversity (VinUni). Other coauthors include associate professor Thanh Nho Do and postdoctoral fellow Phuoc Thien Phan from the Graduate School of Biomedical Engineering at UNSW Sydney in Australia. The team recently published their findings in Nature’s Scientific Reports. Graduate students Nhu An Phan and Sy Trung Ngo at VinUni are first authors on the publication.

Slated for funding through 2032, the project is supported by the VinUni-Illinois Smart Health Center, a collaboration between VinUni and the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. The purpose of the project is to conduct research on novel sensing and informatics with the goal of providing widely accessible health monitoring worldwide.

The team’s device, KNEESENSE, uses a custom-designed wearable hydraulic filament sensor (WHFS) to monitor the angle of the knee joint during real-time rehabilitation work. The foundation for the WHFS design originated with Thai’s PhD dissertation research.

“The key innovation of our work lies in the hydraulic filament sensing mechanism, which enables accurate knee angle monitoring while remaining soft, lightweight, and comfortable for users,” Thai explained. “By combining a silicone tube with a spring-based structure, we can translate pressure changes into precise motion data without restricting natural movement.”

Read more: https://mechse.illinois.edu/news/83040

VinUniversity

Department of Industrial and Enterprise Systems Engineering at Illinois

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Researchers develop novel wearable knee rehabilitation device in international collaboration An international team that includes MechSE Prof. Liz Hsiao-Wecksler has developed KNEESENSE, a device that uses a custom-designed wearable hydraulic filament sensor (WHFS) to monitor the angle of the knee joint during real-time rehabilitation work. The project is supported by the VinUni-Illinois Sma...

Theoretical and applied mechanics alum Kendra Sharp (PhD TAM 2001) was named one of this year’s recipients of MechSE’s Distinguished Alumni Award. Sharp is currently the Dean of the School of Engineering at Santa Clara University.

“I really appreciate the mission of Santa Clara,” she said. “And I was really excited to develop stronger connections and partnerships between industry and academia. Santa Clara is in such a great location to do that.”

As Dean, Sharp has focused on building SCU’s graduate programs, research activity, and industry partnerships. She worked closely with SCU’s leadership to conceptualize the new Cunningham Shoquist Center for Applied AI and Human Potential.

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Distinguished alum’s career path follows vision to improve human potential Kendra Sharp (PhD TAM 2001), currently the Dean of the School of Engineering at Santa Clara University, was recognized as one of the 2026 MechSE Distinguished Alumni.

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