Students

Blue sky with white clouds and a white air balloon being filled up that is grounded

UC Davis Student Team Selected as Finalist for New NASA Balloon Challenge

  • by College of Engineering Communications
  • February 03, 2023
A team of UC Davis students is one of six university teams that has been selected as finalists to advance to the next phase of NASA’s Formulate, Lift, Observe, And Testing; Data Recovery And Guided On-board Node (FLOATing DRAGON) Balloon Challenge. The UC Davis team, which is comprised of undergraduate students from the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, is called HERMES, or High-altitude Experimental Rogallo Mission to Escort Safely. 
Jacqueline Arroyo Donjuan

Student Spotlight: Jacqueline Arroyo Donjuan '23

  • by Isabelle Soukphaly, Matt Murphy
  • January 20, 2023
“I have gained so much support from AvenueE, and I would not be in the academic and professional position that I am in today without them,” Arroyo Donjuan said. “AvenueE has facilitated my access to multiple resources such as tutoring, success coaching, counseling, guest speakers, internship, and, scholarship opportunities.”
uc davis engineering space satellite systems club cubesat launch undergraduates

Space and Satellite Systems Club at UC Davis Reaches for the Stars

  • by Noah A Pflueger-Peters
  • November 29, 2022
After nearly six years and the contributions of more than 300 undergraduate students in the Space and Satellite Systems (SSS) Club at UC Davis, the university’s first student-built satellite will be going to space for proof-of-concept experiments as part of NASA’s CubeSat Launch Initiative.
ines noelly tano uc davis mechanical aerospace engineering asme best paper heat exchangers

MAE Graduate Students Receive Prestigious Fellowships, Awards for Research in CFD, Heat Transfer and Human-Computer Interaction

  • by Noah A Pflueger-Peters
  • August 04, 2022

The Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering is excited to highlight the recent success of its graduate students, who have received numerous awards and fellowships in recognition of their outstanding research in computational fluid dynamics (CFD), AI and human-computer interaction and heat transfer and solar-thermal energy, respectively.

More information about each award and its recipients are below:

uc davis first nations rocketry team mechanical aerospace engineering undergraduate competition

UC Davis Wins Moon Challenge at First Nations Rocketry Competition

  • by Noah A Pflueger-Peters
  • June 30, 2022
On a wet and windy Sunday in Kansasville, Wisconsin this April, the First Nations Rocketry team at UC Davis launched and recovered a high-powered rocket and won the First Nations Launch High-Powered Rocket Competition moon challenge for the second year in a row.
EcoCAR students

EcoCAR EV Challenge Marks a New Era for UC Davis Engineering

  • by Noah Pflueger-Peters
  • May 03, 2022
Over the next four years, UC Davis students will be designing the car of the future as part of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)’s EcoCAR Electric Vehicle (EV) Challenge. The competition challenges students to convert a Cadillac LYRIQ EV into an autonomous, next-generation battery-electric vehicle with vehicle-to-everything connectivity so it can interact with devices and the environment.
uc davis mechanical aerospace engineering patricia paje vertical flight vfs diversiflite scholarship

Aerospace Engineering Major Patricia Paje Named VFS 2022 DiversiFlite Scholar

  • by The Vertical Flight Society
  • April 21, 2022
Paje is an inaugural recipient of the Vertical Flight Society scholarship, which supports promising engineering students interested in vertical flight at U.S.-recognized minority-serving institutions and sends them to the VFS annual forum. Paje is a first-generation college student and recently participated in an internship with electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft pioneer Wisk Aero, LLC.
students working on a stage

Space Research Takes the Stage

  • by Jocelyn Anderson
  • March 22, 2022

The Main Theatre at Wright Hall this month became the unlikely site of an experiment on technology that could eventually go into space.

Students in the Center for Spaceflight Research at UC Davis are working on technologies for a class of satellites that could inspect other spacecraft, such as the International Space Station, in collaboration with NASA. But up in space, the light is harshly bright with no atmosphere to attenuate the sunshine, and the technology must be configured for that environment.

morgan harris uc davis mechanical aerospace engineering graduate student assistive robotics stroke

Morgan Harris: Building a Healthier World with Prosthetics

  • by Noah A Pflueger-Peters
  • February 28, 2022

Second-year Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering M.S. student Morgan Harris wants to be on the front lines of building a healthier community. Through her research on prosthetic devices and her dream of opening her own prosthetics and orthotics clinic, she wants to improve people’s lives while offering the same type of mentorship and outreach experiences that inspired her.

emily jonsson uc davis mechanical aerospace engineering ms graduate student msec best paper award

M.S. student Emily Jonsson wins MSEC Best Poster Award

  • by Noah A Pflueger-Peters
  • December 14, 2021

Mechanical and aerospace engineering (MAE) M.S. student Emily Jonsson won the Organizing Committee Best Poster award this summer at the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) Manufacturing Science and Engineering Conference (MSEC). Her winning poster, “Wafer Experiments to Assess Machining Distortion in Aluminum,” outlined her research on understanding and predicting stresses in aluminum with her advisors, Barbara Linke and Mike Hill.

daniela barajas ivey ms student uc davis mechanical aerospace chemical engineering eclss

Daniela Barajas Ivey: A chemical engineer in aerospace

  • by Noah A Pflueger-Peters
  • December 13, 2021

The best piece of advice M.S. student Daniela Barajas Ivey received as she earned her B.S. in chemical engineering at UC Davis was, “chemical engineering can be found in all disciplines.” She took this to heart and after joining the aerospace industry, she returned to UC Davis as a master’s student to study environmental control and life support systems (ECLSS) for human habitats in deep space.

sicheng kevin li uc davis mechanical aerospace engineering urban air mobility ucdquietfly

Student Spotlight: Sicheng (Kevin) Li

  • by Noah A Pflueger-Peters
  • October 25, 2021

Fourth-year mechanical and aerospace engineering (MAE) Ph.D. student Sicheng (Kevin) Li is making a major impact on aerospace engineering and in the UC Davis community through his cutting-edge research on rotorcraft noise and his leadership and mentorship on campus.

uc davis mechanical aerospace engineering lab safety awards la saponara

Valeria La Saponara’s Lab wins UC Davis Lab Safety Award

  • by Grant Nejedlo and Noah Pflueger-Peters
  • October 13, 2021
Professor Valeria La Saponara’s lab recently received the College of Engineering Lab Safety Award from UC Davis Safety Services, naming it the best lab in the College of Engineering in terms of safety. The awards recognize labs with a strong safety emphasis who are doing their part to think safe, act safe and be safe.
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