The Ohio State University

The 2008 Alumni Awards were presented at the Honors and Awards Banquet in the spring, and six mechanical engineering alumni were recognized. A committee of alumni, faculty members, and members of the department's External Advisory Board selected alumni for these awards.

Denny Guenther, professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, was awarded the 2008 Alumni Award for Distinguished Teaching at Ohio State. Guenther has been teaching full-time at Ohio State for nearly 34 years. He has taught courses in a wide variety of areas within mechanical engineering during his tenure at OSU. He has taught courses in mechanical design including the capstone design course, dynamic systems including courses on vehicle dynamics, thermal and fluid systems, and applied mechanics. Students in his courses value his energy and enthusiasm, the practical experience he brings into the classroom, and his obvious interest in students and teaching.

Craig Pavlich loves to remind Eric Schacht about the time he "broke the car."

"Well, I was driving rather ... aggressively, and I snapped the axle shaft," said Schacht, a junior in electrical engineering. "We had to get the car towed."

"Everyone's waiting for him, and he never shows up," said Pavlich, a senior in mechanical engineering.

"The GM guys welded it back together," Schacht said.

As improved recruitment and retention of women programs are put into place at engineering schools across the country ; five women in mechanical engineering, sit down to discuss some of the key issues surrounding females in the field.

Mechanical engineering is the largest discipline in the engineering field, yet the discipline does not exhibit a representative number of women, when compared to other engineering areas. According to data provided by the American Society for Engineering Education, biomedical engineering had 43.7 percent of women enrolled in the discipline, compared to 12.5 percent in mechanical engineering.

This research focusing on the use of magnetorheological (MR) fluids to provide tactile feedback, funded by the National Science Foundation, appeals to surgeons performing minimally invasive surgeries—and it will make their patients much happier as well.