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Clarkson University's Professor Ratan Jha Elected Conference Technical Chair
Professor Ratan Jha
Clarkson University's Mechanical and Aeronautical Engineering Professor Ratan Jha has been elected technical chair of the 21st AIAA/ASME/AHS Adaptive Structures Conference to be held next year in Boston. This Conference is sponsored by three professional societies: the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, and the American Helicopter Society.
As technical chair, Jha is responsible for the overall planning of the conference, including paper solicitation, abstract reviews and acceptance; communications with authors; session chair selection; and session planning.
Professor Jha came to Clarkson in 1999. He established the Smart Structures Laboratory, which performs vibration/wave propagation measurements. Smart structures technology has the potential to significantly impact numerous products in diverse industries such as aerospace, wind energy, and civil infrastructure. Recent research in the Smart Structures Laboratory was cited in Year in Review 2011, an Aerospace America (AIAA) Publication.
Jha conducts research in modeling of composite and smart structures, structural health monitoring, UAV, active flow control, intelligent flight controls, and multidisciplinary design optimization. His research contributions include both theoretical and experimental works which have resulted in more than 90 publications in international archival journals and conferences. He has served as advisor to 25 graduate students (including three current students) and five undergraduate honors students.
Professor Lifeng Wang Joins CAMP
Professor Lifeng Wang
Dr. Lifeng Wang recently joined CAMP. He is a new faculty member at Clarkson and serves as an Assistant Professor in the University's Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering. He received his Ph.D. from Tsinghua University and worked as a postdoctoral associate at Massachusetts Institute of Technology before coming to Clarkson. Professor Wang's research interests include the mechanical behavior of polymer fibers, thin films, microstructures, and composites; the design and nanomechanics of biological materials and bio-inspired materials; and the mechanics of carbon nanotubes, graphite, and their composites. He received the National Science Award from China's Ministry of Education and China's National Excellent Doctoral Dissertation Award. In addition, Professor Wang is a member of the Materials Research Society, the American Physical Society and the Society for Experimental Mechanics.