Graduate students in WPI’s Mechanical Engineering MS program don’t just ask “why,” they ask “why not?” If you’re a passionate innovator, builder, and problem solver, the collaborative and inspiring environment will help you tackle society’s most critical engineering challenges whether in research or industry.
The program receives significant funding, including support from such sources as the National Institutes of Health, NASA, the National Science Foundation, and Sandia National Labs.
Our world-class, dedicated faculty members invite students into their research projects in our various cutting-edge labs. And in our classrooms, you’ll gain a depth and breadth of understanding mechanical engineering practices to assume leadership roles in industry. Whatever your goals are, our faculty will push you to forge your path and realize your ambitions.
Your course work will include mechanical engineering, mathematics, electives, and a graduate seminar. You may choose to complete a thesis or non-thesis option, the latter requiring more courses in mechanical engineering to replace the thesis requirements.
Graduate students may choose from five fields of study to allow the most opportunity to work on current research with WPI faculty. These diverse areas of study include the following:
The diverse research activities within WPI’s Mechanical Engineering MS program place graduate students at the center of research that’s advancing key 21st century industries.
Companies that work with WPI’s faculty (and you):
Our comprehensive facilities offer an open and collaborative environment where you’ll work on new discoveries with engineers from across disciplines. We offer five centers and more than 20 research laboratories run by renowned faculty, supported by industry partners, and outfitted with innovative equipment and instruments.
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.
Autonomous vehicles – aircraft, cars, rovers, over- and underwater vehicles that can move in the real world by themselves without human pilotage – have gained immense importance not only due to the broad spectrum of their potential military and civilian applications, but also due to the concurrent development of sensor technology and embedded systems that enable the realization of true autonomy.
Professor Fischer is the William Smith Dean's Professor and a faculty member in Mechanical Engineering and Robotics Engineering with a appointments in Biomedical Engineering & Electrical Engineering at WPI. He received his PhD in Mechanical Engineering in 2008 from Johns Hopkins University, where he was part of the NSF Engineering Research Center for Computer Integrated Surgery.
My research is aimed towards understanding fundamental aspects of reacting flows at thermodynamic conditions of relevance to aircraft, rocket, and automobile propulsion. Reacting flow phenomena occurring in engines are complicated as a result of turbulent flow, interaction with solid boundaries, and extreme thermodynamic conditions. In order to understand and simulate combustion phenomena under such conditions, there is a necessity to develop accurate chemical kinetic and molecular transport models in addition to fluid mechanics models.
My research on the synergy of human and robotic systems aims to develop motion and task planning strategies for wearable and humanoid robots, based on the behavior and preference demonstrated in human motion coordination and task plans. For wearable robots such as the upper limb exoskeletons for stroke rehabilitation, the arm posture of the robots cannot be appropriately determined using the general kinematic redundancy resolution methods for manipulation robots, yet it can be accurately predicted based on human perception-action coordination.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
