The Ohio State University

The American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) announced the election of Mohammad Samimy as a 2009 AIAA Fellow. Election to the rank of Fellow recognizes members for their notable and valuable contributions to the art, science and technology of aeronautics and astronautics.

Samimy is the Howard D. Winbigler Designated Professor in Engineering at Ohio State. He also is director of the Gas Dynamics and Turbulence Lab.

The Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR) awarded 39 scientists and engineers approximately $12.1 million in grants through the Air Force's Young Investigator Research Program.

Jeffrey Sutton, assistant professor of mechanical engineering, was one of those selected from 210 proposals submitted to receive funds totaling $310,000* *that will support his research investigating spatio-temporal characteristics of scalar mixing and dissipation processes in turbulent jets and flames.

The Society of Automobile Engineers (SAE) Fellow Committee announced its selection of members elected to the Fellow grade of SAE membership, a list that includes Denny Guenther, professor of mechanical engineering.

Along with twenty-six other newly elected Fellows, Guenther will be honored during the 2009 SAE World Congress and Exhibition in Detroit, Michigan in April, 2009.

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.

Researchers have invented a new material that will make cars even more efficient, by converting heat wasted through engine exhaust into electricity.

In the current issue of the journal Science, they describe a material with twice the efficiency of anything currently on the market.

The same technology could work in power generators and heat pumps, said project leader Joseph Heremans, Ohio Eminent Scholar in Nanotechnology at Ohio State University.