Faculty

Jamal Yagoobi

Jamal Yagoobi

George I. Alden Professor and Head of Mechanical and Materials Engineering Department
Mechanical & Materials Engineering
Office: Higgins Labs 134
Phone: +1 (508) 8315000 x5236
I enjoy teaching at the undergraduate and graduate levels. Teaching is very rewarding, and it allows me to interact with the students. My teaching portfolio includes undergraduate and graduate level courses in the areas of heat transfer, fluid mechanics, liquid/vapor phase change, thermodynamics, and design of thermal systems. I am very active in research. My research has been actively supported by NSF, NASA, AFOSR, SBA, ASHRAE and various companies. ... View Profile
Isa Bar-On

Isa Bar-On

Professor-Engineering
Mechanical & Materials Engineering
Office: Washburn Shops 224
Phone: +1 (508) 8315000 x5127
My favorite activities involve guiding students in projects and research. I like to give them independence and to learn from their work. I enjoy challenging them and myself to find better answers, explanations, and solutions. I am very interested in socio-technical systems, such as the healthcare system or the energy delivery system. Over the past years, my research has focused on developing models in support of an improved healthcare delivery system. ... View Profile
John Sullivan

John M. Sullivan

Professor
Mechanical & Materials Engineering
Office: Higgins Labs 111
Phone: +1 (508) 8315000 x5199
Teaching is the most important aspect of my profession. I have strived to teach the full spectrum of college offerings addressing freshman students through Ph.D. students. The project philosophy is a fundamental pillar of the WPI education. I encourage and promote this ideal in all of the projects that I advise. Students who bring a project to fruition gain more knowledge and understanding than most conventional instructional modes. I am committed to MQP and IQP activities. ... View Profile
Mehul Bhatia

Mehul A Bhatia

Assistant Teaching Professor
Mechanical & Materials Engineering
Office: Higgins Lab 107
Phone: +1 (973) 8207867
Dr. M. A. Bhatia is an Assistant Teaching Professor in Mechanical & Materials Engineering Department at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. Prior to coming to WPI, Dr. Bhatia was a Postdoctoral Researcher at Arizona State University where he was working on thermal and mechanical stability of nanocrystalline Cu-Ta material which was published in nature journal. He received his Ph.D. from Arizona State University in December 2014. ... View Profile
Christopher Brown

Christopher A. Brown

Professor
Mechanical & Materials Engineering
Office: Washburn Shops 235
Phone: +1 (508) 8315000 x5627
Chris Brown has been on the WPI faculty since 1989. In 1983 he completed his doctoral work on machining at the University of Vermont, where he also worked in orthopedics and studied ski injuries. As an undergraduate, he was Vermont’s only walk-on All-American skier. He raced and coached there during the longest regular season undefeated streak in NCAA history and is a member of UVM’s athletic hall of fame. ... View Profile
Lin Cheng

Lin Cheng

Assistant Professor
Mechanical & Materials Engineering
Office: Higgins Lab 212
Dr. Lin Cheng is an assistant professor in the Department of Mechanical & Materials Engineering at WPI. His research lies in the interdisciplinary field of scientific machine learning and additive manufacturing, with a specific concentration on the development of  physics-based machine learning  and its application for  computational design of functional materials ,   and  multi-scale and multi-physics modeling for AM .  View Profile
Eben Cobb

Eben C. Cobb

Adjunct Teaching Professor
Mechanical & Materials Engineering
Office: Higgins Lab 211
Phone: +1 (508) 8315000 x5035
Danielle Cote

Danielle Lynn Cote

Assistant Professor
Mechanical & Materials Engineering
Office: Washburn 315
Dr. Cote is an Assistant Professor in Materials Science & Engineering at WPI. She received her B.S. from the University of New Hampshire in Chemical Engineering and M.S. and Ph.D. in Materials Science & Engineering from WPI. She also worked as a research engineer at Saint-Gobain High Performance Materials in the Polymer Characterization research group. ... View Profile
Robert Daniello

Robert Daniello

Assistant Teaching Professor
Mechanical & Materials Engineering
Office: 100 Institute RD
I joined WPI in the fall of 2015 to teach thermo-fluid courses in the Department of Mechanical & Materials Engineering. The objective of my teaching is to guide students in the application of thermodynamics, fluid mechanics, and heat transfer to solve practical problems in fields such as transportation, energy, and life sciences. I advocate project-based learning and hands-on experience in the laboratory and shop. My research involves experimental studies of fluid behavior. ... View Profile
Chrys Demetry

Chrys Demetry

Professor
Mechanical & Materials Engineering
Office: Gordon Library 302
Phone: +1 (508) 8315000 x5195
As a college professor, I have the opportunity not only to excite students about my field of materials science and engineering, but to help them develop holistically as critical thinkers, lifelong learners, innovators, and effective and ethical communicators during an important formative period in their personal and professional lives. I was an undergraduate at WPI and really valued the project-based learning, the Global Projects Program, and the extent of contact I had with my professors. Those same values drew me back to WPI as a faculty member. ... View Profile
Alireza Ebadi

Alireza Ebadi

Assistant Teaching Professor
Mechanical & Materials Engineering
Office: Higgins Labs 107
I joined WPI as an Assistant Teaching Professor in Fall 2021. I believe that a thriving engineering education is based on three key aspects: 1) providing necessary information to solve a problem effectively, 2) teaching problem solving skills, and 3) facilitating collaboration within and outside college in order to apply knowledge to solve open-ended problems. Since the start of my teaching career in 2016, I have developed a teaching philosophy that is based on an equilibrium among these three aspects. ... View Profile
Mustapha Fofana

Mustapha S. Fofana

Associate Professor
Mechanical & Materials Engineering
Office: Higgins Labs 206
Phone: +1 (508) 8315000 x5966
Cosme Furlong-Vazquez

Cosme Furlong-Vazquez

Professor
Mechanical & Materials Engineering
Office: Higgins Labs
Phone: +1 (508) 8315000 x5126
Aswin Gnanaskandan

Aswin Gnanaskandan

Assistant Professor
Mechanical & Materials Engineering
Office: Higgins Lab 208
Aswin's work is primarily in the area of Computational Fluid Dynamics, where he specializes in developing high-fidelity models for multiphase flows. His research involves developing physics-based numerical models, implementing them in a parallel computational environment, benchmarking the models against experiments, and applying them to offer mechanistic insights into complex multiphase flow problems. View Profile
Selcuk Guceri

Selcuk Guceri

Professor
Mechanical & Materials Engineering
Office: Higgins Lab 109
Phone: +1 (508) 8315000 x4692
Zhikun Hou

Zhikun Hou

Professor
Mechanical & Materials Engineering
Office: Higgins Labs 209
Phone: +1 (508) 8315705
It has been a great pleasure to teach at WPI, a school with motivated students from all over the world. ... View Profile
Diana Lados

Diana A. Lados

Professor
Mechanical & Materials Engineering
Office: Washburn Shops 319
Phone: +1 (508) 8315000 x6168
Fiona Levey

Fiona Levey

Associate Teaching Professor
Mechanical & Materials Engineering
Office: Higgins Labs 104
Phone: +1 (508) 8315000 x4854
Teaching is my way of sharing my enthusiasm for Science and Engineering. I believe that these are great professions because they give us the ability to effect real and positive change in this world. I particularly enjoy hearing the varied and interesting contributions of the students in class, and the collaborative environment of WPI as a whole. View Profile
Jianyu Liang

Jianyu Liang

Professor
Mechanical & Materials Engineering
Office: Washburn Labs 311A
Phone: +1 (508) 8315000 x6649
Professor Liang’s research explores the physics of interfaces between the nanometer and micron scales. Her team responds to the challenging interdisciplinary nature of their research endeavor through successful collaboration with colleagues with expertise in metrology, physics, bioscience, medical science, chemistry, and fire protection engineering. Her educational effort includes novel approaches to project-based learning and global centers for science and engineering. ... View Profile
Yuxiang Liu

Yuxiang Liu

Associate Professor
Mechanical & Materials Engineering
Office: Rm 4912, Gateway II (50 Prescott St)
Phone: +1 (508) 8315000 x4829
The overarching theme of my research is light-matter interactions and their applications in microscale and nanoscale. Particularly, my research interests include optical trapping, optofluidics, nanophotonics, cavity optomechanics, and fiber optic sensing systems, with an emphasis on optical actuation, damping, and sensing of mechanics in micro-/nano-scale structures and biological specimens. The potential applications of my research include on-chip disease diagnosis, in vivo disease treatments, motion detection in consumer electronics, health monitoring, and biomechanics. ... View Profile
Makhlouf Makhlouf

Makhlouf M. Makhlouf

Professor
Mechanical & Materials Engineering
Office: Washburn Shops 334
Phone: +1 (508) 8315000 x5647
Makhlouf M. Makhlouf is professor of Mechanical & Materials Engineering at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI). He was Director of the Advanced Casting Research Center (ACRC) between 1992 and 2015. ACRC is a collaboration between the academic and industrial sectors focusing on issues that benefit the global foundry industry. It brings fundamental understanding to existing processes, develops new methods, and addresses management-technology interface matters. ... View Profile
Zhu Mao

Zhu Mao

Associate Professor
Mechanical & Materials Engineering
Office: Washburn Shops 234
Phone: +1 (508) 8314845
Dr. Zhu Mao joined WPI as an Associate Professor in the Mechanical and Materials Engineering Department in 2021, and before that, he was on the faculty of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Massachusetts Lowell from 2015. His research interests include dynamics and vibration, intelligent systems, noncontact sensing, signal processing and machine learning, uncertainty quantification, and condition-based monitoring for a variety of applications. ... View Profile
Brajendra Mishra

Brajendra Mishra

Kenneth G. Merriam Professor & Director, MPI
Mechanical & Materials Engineering
Office: Washburn Shops 326
Dr. Mishra is the Kenneth G. Merriam Distinguished Professor of Mechanical & Materials Engineering, the Program Director of the Department of Materials & Manufacturing Engineering and the Director of the Metal Processing Institute at Worcester Polytechnic Institute [WPI]. Dr. Mishra is also the Director of the National Science Foundation’s Industry/University Collaborative Research Center on Resource Recovery & Recycling – the first National Center of its kind. ... View Profile
Lee Moradi

Lee Moradi

Professor of Practice
Mechanical & Materials Engineering
Office: HL 105
Lee Moradi, PhD, PE WPI School of Engineering, Department of Mechanical & Materials Engineering (MME)   Lee Moradi joined WPI in February 2022 as a Professor in the Department of Mechanical & Materials Engineering (MME).  He is also the Co-Director of the Autonomous Vehicle Mobility Institute (AVMI).  Prior to WPI, Lee had 18 years of experience with industry and 25 years as a faculty and director at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB).  Lee held several leadership positions at UAB including: 1.     Director of Engi ... View Profile
Balaji Panchapakesan

Balaji Panchapakesan

Professor
Mechanical & Materials Engineering
Office: 100 Institute RD
Dr. Panchapakesan is the director of the Small Systems Laboratory (SSL) which is dedicated to the development of multi-functional materials, devices and systems at the macro-, micro-, meso- and nanoscales. Our work spans in multiple areas bridging multiple disciplines and multiple length scales. Facilities at SSL include fabrication and characterization units for advanced materials, device processing and testing and biomaterials characterization. Access to the clean room facilities around the Boston area adds to the excitement of student learning as well as experimentation. ... View Profile
Adam Powell

Adam Clayton Powell

Associate Professor
Mechanical & Materials Engineering
Office: Washburn Shops 310
Adam C. Powell, IV is an Associate Professor in the Mechanical & Materials Engineering department who joined the WPI faculty in August 2018. His field is materials processing, and research focuses on greenhouse gas emissions reduction, elimination, and drawdown. Current projects aim to reduce vehicle body weight, lower solar cell manufacturing energy use and cost with improved safety, reduce or eliminate aviation greenhouse gas impact, power ships and trains with zero emissions, and improve grid stability as we drive toward 100% renewables. ... View Profile
Pradeep Radhakrishnan

Pradeep Radhakrishnan

Associate Teaching Professor
Mechanical & Materials Engineering
Office: HL 213
Teaching gives me an opportunity to interact with students and to continually learn and impart new concepts at the same time. I teach Modeling and Analysis of Mechatronic Systems (ME/RBE 4322) and Advanced Engineering Design (ME 4320) during the regular academic year. During summer, I teach Intro to Dynamic Systems (ES 2503) and Kinematics of Mechanisms (ME 3310). My research is centered around developing automated design tools and hardware related to mechatronic systems. During my Ph.D. ... View Profile
Pratap Rao

Pratap M. Rao

Associate Professor
Mechanical & Materials Engineering
Office: 50 Prescott St (Gateway II) - 4910
My research is aimed at discovering, understanding and developing advanced materials for a range of applications including solar energy conversion, catalysis, printed electronics, sensors, and functional coatings. Our lab specializes in the synthesis of nanostructured thin film materials using scalable processes. Students and researchers in my lab can expect to work on highly interdisciplinary projects at the intersection of materials science, mechanical engineering, solid state physics, and thermal sciences. View Profile
Ahmet Sabuncu

Ahmet Can Sabuncu

Assistant Teaching Professor
Mechanical & Materials Engineering
Office: HL 112
Dr. Sabuncu holds a Ph. D. in Aerospace Engineering from Old Dominion University. Dr. Sabuncu’s professional interests is thermo-fluids engineering including microfluidic applications. He is also interested in dielectric spectroscopy of cells and tissues since 2009. His research in engineering education focuses on development of online laboratory exercises and use of Internet of Things & artificial intellegence in engineering education. ... View Profile
Brian Savilonis

Brian James Savilonis

Professor
Mechanical & Materials Engineering
Office: Higgins Labs 108
Phone: +1 (508) 8315000 x5686
The project mode of education is a significant tenet of WPI; project based courses are common, along with the required Interactive Qualifying Project and Major Qualifying Project. Managing this close knit intellectual activity has m any parallels to coaching sports; watching individuals " light up" is tremendously rewarding. The recent addition of the Great Problems Seminar allows strong interaction with the freshman class as well. The thermofluid area is critical to world sustainability and extends beyond technical expertise to socio- political and economic context. View Profile
Christopher Scarpino

Christopher Scarpino

Instructor
Mechanical & Materials Engineering
Office: Higgins Labs 153
Phone: +1 (508) 8315000 x4927
Christopher Scarpino is an adjunct instructor at Worcester Polytechnic Institute and Lowell Institute Lecturer at Northeastern University. He has his Master’s of Science and 18 years of professional experience in industry, academic laboratories (MIT & Harvard), and at the USAF Research & Development Laboratory. Scarpino initiated a research project to develop a new clinical device that was awarded a 2007 NIH (NIDCD) grant and a 2009 ARRA grant. He is a patent holder in the motor vehicle sector and founder of the International Corps of Engineers, a non-profit for engineers. ... View Profile
Satya Shivkumar

Satya Shivkumar

Professor
Mechanical & Materials Engineering
Office: Washburn Shops 227
Phone: +1 (508) 8315000 x5048
Richard Sisson

Richard D. Sisson

George F. Fuller Professor
Mechanical & Materials Engineering
Office: Washburn Shops 246B
Phone: +1 (508) 8315000 x5335
Richard D. Sisson, Jr. is the George F. Fuller Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Director of the Center for Heat Treating Excellence at WPI. Professor Sisson has been with WPI for 40+ years. In addition, he has taught at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and has been a research metallurgist with DuPont Savannah Laboratory and a staff engineer with Exxon Chemical Company. Professor Sisson received his BS in metallurgical engineering from Virginia Polytechnic Institute in 1969, MS in 1971. In 1975 he earned a PhD in materials science and Engineering from Purdue University. ... View Profile
Winston Soboyejo

Winston Soboyejo

Senior Vice President and Provost
Mechanical & Materials Engineering
Office: 100 Institute Road
Winston (Wole) Soboyejo was named Provost and Senior Vice President of WPI in October 2019 , after joining WPI in September 2016  as the Bernard M. Gordon Dean of Engineering . Provost Soboyejo came to WPI from Princeton University, where he was a professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering and a renowned materials scientist and engineer. For two years, he led WPI’s School of Engineering. ... View Profile
Joe Stabile

Joe Stabile

Instructor
Mechanical & Materials Engineering
Office: Higgins Laboratories, 211
Phone: +1 (508) 5610029
I have spent 36 years in product development. 25 years in the computer storage industry working on airborne hard drives, desktop hard drives, tape storage systems, optical storage devices, and robotic pick and place systems for tape cartridges. Most recently I have spent the last 11 years at Bose Corporation working in advanced development on high efficiency small speaker systems. ... View Profile
Vladimir Vantsevich

Vladimir Vantsevich

Mechanical & Materials Engineering
Office: HL105
Vladimir Vantsevich is a professor in the Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering. He serves as co-Director and Principal Investigator of the Autonomous Vehicle Mobility Institute (AVMI). Prior to WPI, he worked as a professor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and Lawrence Technological University (LTU) in Michigan. Before LTU, Dr. ... View Profile
Yan Wang

Yan Wang

Professor
Mechanical & Materials Engineering
Office: Washburn Shops 311b
Phone: +1 (508) 8315000 x5453
I am William Smith Foundation Dean's Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. Since joining WPI, I have been very active in research. Currently, my lab focuses on the study of new electrodes and materials for energy storage, including lithium ion batteries, supercapacitors, flow batteries, battery manufacturing, battery safety and recycle, and fundamental electrochemistry. This research can lead to energy storage with high energy density, high power density, long life, low cost, and high safety. ... View Profile
Sarah Jane Wodin-Schwartz

Sarah Jane Wodin-Schwartz

Associate Professor of Teaching
Mechanical & Materials Engineering
Office: Higgins Laboratories, 106
Phone: +1 (508) 8315000 x6037
Prof. Wodin-Schwartz joined WPI in August 2015. While at UC Berkeley, Prof. Wodin-Schwartz was a teaching assistant for both mechanical and electrical engineering courses including Introduction to Mechatronics for which she received the Outstanding Graduate Student Instructor Award. Her Ph.D. research focused on the use of microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) for down hole geothermal well monitoring. Before joining WPI, Prof. Wodin-Schwartz spent two years at the technical consulting firm Exponent Inc. ... View Profile
Yihao Zheng

Yihao Zheng

Assistant Professor
Mechanical & Materials Engineering
Office: Higgins Labs 150, 100 Institute Road, Worcester MA, 01609
My research focuses on medical and manufacturing innovation. I apply manufacturing science and technology to enhance healthcare. I contribute fundamental knowledge of tissue mechanics and imaging properties, provide novel computational modeling methodologies to simulate and understand manufacturing and surgical processes, and develop medical devices and clinical manufacturing systems to tackle unmet clinical needs. “Intuition makes an engineer outstanding. ... View Profile
Yu Zhong

Yu Zhong

Associate Professor
Mechanical & Materials Engineering
Office: WB 312
We are currently hiring!! Dr. Yu Zhong joined WPI as an Associate Professor. He received his Ph.D. from Penn State (2005). After a short-term working as Research Associate, he joined Saint-Gobain High Performance Research Center in Northborough, MA. He had spent his 8-year career there working as an internal technical consultant focusing on the application of thermodynamics and kinetics to various materials R&D projects. In 2013, He moved to Florida International University (FIU) as Assistant Professor. ... View Profile

Administrative Staff - Mechanical Engineering

Patricia Howe

Patricia Howe

Operations - Administrator
Mechanical & Materials Engineering
Office: Higgins Labs 123
Phone: +1 (508) 8315000 x4875
Barbara Furhman

Barbara Furhman

Administrative Assistant VI
Mechanical & Materials Engineering
Office: Higgins Labs 130
Phone: +1 (508) 8315000 x6046
GlorieAnn Minnich

GlorieAnn K. Minnich

Grants Specialist-Other
Mechanical & Materials Engineering
Office: Washburn Shops 224
Phone: +1 (508) 8315000 x6770
Shelly Woods

Shelly Woods

Administrative Assistant VI
Mechanical & Materials Engineering
Office: Washburn Shops 309
Phone: +1 (508) 8315000 x6088

Administrative Staff - Lab Managers

Edward Burnham

Edward H. Burnham

Research Data Scientist
Mechanical & Materials Engineering
Office: Higgins Labs 249
Peter Hefti

Peter Hefti

Lab Manager I
Mechanical & Materials Engineering
Office: Higgins Labs 033
Phone: +1 (413) 3558898

Boquan Li

Mgr, Materials Char. Labs
Mechanical & Materials Engineering
Phone: +1 (508) 8315000 x6025

Administrative Staff - HAAS Technical Center

Torbjorn Stansen Bergstrom

Operations Manager
Mechanical & Materials Engineering
Phone: +1 (508) 8315000 x5122
Joel Harris

Joel Harris

Senior Instructional Laboratory Technician
Mechanical Engineering
Office: WB107
Joel Harris, PE, joined the Manufacturing Laboratory after a 32 year career at Raytheon Technologies (formerly Raytheon Co) plus 3 years at Pratt & Whitney Aircraft.  Joel's area of expertise is mechanical and mechatronic engineering of aerospace and marine products.  Joel worked on design, analysis, manufacture, test of components and systems, plus support to fielded products.  For his last 12 years at Raytheon, Joel was the engineering lead for the manufacture of the PATRIOT GEM-T missile control section. ... View Profile

Administrative Staff - Metals Processing Institute

Michael Collins

Michael Davies Collins

Lab Manager
Metal Processing Institute
Office: Washburn Shops 113
Phone: +1 (508) 8316295
Maureen Plunkett

Maureen Rose Plunkett

Executive Administrator
Mechanical & Materials Engineering
Office: Washburn Shops 326
Phone: +1 (508) 8315000 x5992

Associated Faculty

Name Title Email Phone Extension Office Location
Nicholas Bertozzi Senior Instructor nbertozzi@wpi.edu 6166 85 Prescott, #207
Kristen L. Billiar Professor kbilliar@wpi.edu 5384 Gateway Park, 4008
Kathy Chen STEM Education Executive Director kcchen@wpi.edu 6221 157 West Street
Nicholas A. Dembsey Professor ndembsey@wpi.edu 5971 Gateway Park II 1212
Songbai Ji Associate Professor sji@wpi.edu 6852 Gateway Park 3002
Sharon Johnson Professor sharon@wpi.edu 5183 Washburn Shops 223
Renata Konrad Assistant Professor rkonrad@wpi.edu 5192 Washburn Shops 205
Reinhold Ludwig Professor ludwig@wpi.edu 5315 Atwater Kent 229
Solomon Mensah Assistant Professor smensah@wpi.edu 4036 Gateway, 60 Prescott Street
Markus Nemitz Assistant Professor

mnemitz@wpi.edu

 N/A Rm 311, 85 Prescott Street
Kathy A. Notarianni Associate Professor kanfpe@wpi.edu 6786 Gateway Park II 1205
Cagdas Onal Associate Professor cdonal@wpi.edu 4857 Higgins Labs 105
Nima Rahbar Associate Professor nrahbar@wpi.edu 6567 Kaven Hall 106
Ali S. Rangwala Associate Professor rangwala@wpi.edu 6409 Gateway Park II 1210
Albert Simeoni Professor asimeoni@wpi.edu 5162 Gateway Park II 1203
Burt S. Tilley Associate Professor tilley@wpi.edu 6664 Stratton Hall 105A
Michal Timko Associate Professor mttimko@wpi.edu 4101 Goddard Hall 123
Walter Thomas Towner Assistant Teaching Professor fabman@wpi.edu 6013 Washburn Shops 222
Karen Troy Associate Professor ktroy@wpi.edu 6093 Gateway Park 4007
James Urban Associate Professor jurban@wpi.edu N/A 50 Prescott Street (Gateway Park II) 1213

 

Faculty Emeriti

Faculty Name Title WPI Email
Diran Apelian Professor Emeritus dapelian@wpi.edu
Holly K. Ault Associate Professor Emeritus ahault@wpi.edu
Ronald Biederman Professor Emeritus rrb@wpi.edu
John M. Boyd Professor Emeritus jmboyd@wpi.edu
Allen H. Hoffman Professor Emeritus ahoffman@wpi.edu
J. A. Mayer, Jr. Professor Emeritus  
Robert L. Norton Professor Emeritus norton@wpi.edu
David Planchard Instructor Emeritus planchard@wpi.edu
Ryszard J. Pryputniewicz Professor Emeritus rjp@wpi.edu