PI Brian Slaboch, an Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering, has nine years of experience in higher education, advising 29 undergraduate students on research projects since 2015. Since 2020, he has mentored 13 undergraduate researchers at MSOE, resulting in five peer-reviewed conference publications in mechanisms and robotics, all with undergraduate student co-authors.

Dr. Slaboch is the recipient of the 2024 Karl O. Werwath Applied Research Award, the highest honor for contribution to applied research at MSOE. He has also overseen over 40 senior design projects related to robotics and automation and served as a committee member for four Master’s thesis projects at Marquette University. His research work has been supported by external funding from the Wisconsin Space Grant Consortium and Eaton Corporation. His space related research includes the design and analysis of space latching mechanisms, the design of underactuated robotic grippers, and the design and control of reconfigurable space mechanisms for the efficient sorting and assembly of space components.

Co-PI Kevin Hart, an Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering, has six years of experience in higher education and three years of experience as a post-doctoral research fellow at the US Army Research Laboratory. Dr. Hart has advised 17 graduate and undergraduate students since 2016, which has resulted in eight peer-reviewed publications, one patent and dozens of presentations at national conferences.

Additionally, Dr. Hart has advised six undergraduate bachelor’s theses, 12 senior design projects, and two REU students under award EEC-2045738. Dr. Hart is an expert in the field of additive manufacturing and self-healing materials and has received financial support from entities such as the US Army Combat Capabilities Development Command Soldier Center, The American Society for Composites, and the US Army HEROES (Harnessing Emerging Research Opportunities to Empower Soldiers) program.

Mentor Sudhir Kaul is the Professor and Chair of the Department of Mechanical Engineering at MSOE. Kaul has 16 years of experience in higher education and has advised more than 10 undergraduate researchers. Some of these undergraduate researchers presented their research at national conferences. Kaul has also served as an advisor for more than 20 undergraduate capstone projects, and many of these projects were industry sponsored. Furthermore, Kaul has supervised more than 10 graduate theses. Kaul served as a co-PI for an NSF-S-STEM grant award from 2014 to 2019 under (Grant No. 1355872). Kaul has also received research funding from industry and foundations.

Mentor Nate Patterson, an Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering, has nine years of experience in higher education. During this time, he has advised fourteen senior design projects, three of which were cross-disciplinary CNC and robotics-focused projects. Patterson has overseen five independent study student projects, two undergraduate theses, and he has mentored two students as an REU advisor (2022). Patterson has received two partial-leave awards to research and develop MSOE’s Virtual Wind Tunnel (VWT), which he has used in multiple Fluid Mechanics-related courses. The VWT has also been used extensively by senior design groups and served as the basis for a student entry into MSOE’s supercomputer challenge, receiving a 5th place award out of more than 50 entries. His research projects have incorporated traditional statistical modeling and prediction approaches, reinforcement learning, neural networks, physics informed neural networks, and mesh-based graph neural networks.

Mentor Anand Vyas, an Instructor of Mechanical Engineering, has 20 years of teaching and research experience in higher education, serving in an advisory role for seven senior design projects, two co-advised NSF-REU projects (with Dr. Subha Kumpaty), one co-advised master’s thesis (with Dr. Subha Kumpaty), and one supervised independent study at graduate level. The co-advised NSF-REU projects resulted in two NCUR conference publications and corresponding poster presentations. He also served as the faculty advisor for rocketry competition teams at MSOE from 2015 through 2022.

Mentor Patrick Comiskey has been an Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering at MSOE for three years. Since 2022, he has been leading the undergraduate high-power rocketry competitions and was awarded four grants through the Wisconsin Space Grant Consortium, two where he was co-PI and two where he was the sole PI, consisting of a total of 39 undergraduate students mentored through the rocketry competitions. He’s been the advisor on a B.Sc. thesis in Mechanical Engineering for an undergraduate foreign exchange student on fluid penetration through porous substrates, and facilitated an independent study conducted by a senior-level undergraduate mechanical engineering student on an ideal rocket nose cone shape and fin placement.

Additionally, he’s served as a committee member for a Ph.D. thesis at the University of Illinois at Chicago.