Watch Jacob Segil, CEO of Afference and research professor in the Paul M. Rady Department of Mechanical Engineering, showcase a new piece of haptic technology in an episode of Freethink's Hard Reset docuseries that will "redraw the borders of reality."

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Nick Rovito, a first-year PhD student in the Paul M. Rady Department of Mechanical Engineering, was living on top of the world.

After submitting a technical publication to the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) Fluids Engineering Division, he was named one of five finalists for the Young Engineer Paper Competition and was invited to present his research at the International Mechanical Engineering Congress & Exposition (IMECE) conference in Portland, Oregon.

Nick Rovito, first-year PhD student and winner of the American Society of Mechanical Engineer's Young Engineer Paper Competition.

Rovito’s award-winning research article is titled “.” The piece featured a multi-physics model coupling fluid dynamics, drug transport and reactions that emulates the clot-dissolving process in stroke treatment.

Simply being recognized amongst the other finalists at such a prestigious gathering was already the honor of a lifetime, he said. With over 1,600 research leaders across nearly 20 technical tracks, the IMECE conference features one of the largest and most diverse conference communities that ASME has to offer. It’s often touted as the largest mechanical engineering conference in the country.

But when presentations had concluded and the judges were done deliberating, Rovito wasn’t just a finalist. He was the winner.

As a graduate research assistant in the , led by Assistant Professor Debanjan Mukherjee at the University of ŷ���ڱ���Ƶ Boulder, Rovito conducts computational fluid dynamics research analyzing the mechanisms of thrombolysis in the blood vessels of the brain. This primary mode of stroke therapy involves administering medication to help restore blood flow by dissolving blood clots that may be causing a stroke.

“The FLOWLab is very multidisciplinary,” Rovito said. “We study stroke and medicine by analyzing fluid motion and transport through the cardiovascular system. Recognizing this allows us to apply principles of mechanical engineering to an otherwise medically focused field.”

His work aims to answer two questions: why do stroke treatments fail, and how can we increase their efficacy in the future?

“When you have a stroke, there’s an artery in your brain that is being blocked by a blood clot. Tissue plasminogen activator is the only drug approved by the FDA to treat this, but nearly 50 percent of patients don’t actually see the clot fully dissolve,” Rovito said. “A stroke left untreated could spell permanent disability or death, so we want to study the fluid mechanics within the vascular structure and see exactly how that drug is being delivered to the blood clot.”

Thrombolysis is known to present other dangerous issues, as well. Tissue plasminogen activator is categorized as an anticoagulant or a blood thinner. The drug’s job is to interfere with the clotting process and prevent blood clots from forming or growing.

However, the drug is not capable of targeting specific blood clots. It will dissolve any blood clot, including those that are not causing the stroke. Rovito says this can lead to severe bleeding if the drug goes elsewhere in the brain, or if it is overused.

Assistant Professor Debanjan Mukherjee (left) and Nick Rovito (right). Rovito is a graduate research assistant in the FLOWLab, led by Mukherjee.

“Around twenty percent of the patients who receive this drug experience major bleeding whether the stroke treatment is successful or not,” he said. “Understanding drug delivery from a flow physics standpoint helps us understand what the drug is doing when it’s administered so we can potentially mitigate those issues in the future.”

“I felt confident about my work,” Rovito said. “But I was just happy to be there. Everybody’s work was phenomenal. Any of the finalists could have won. So when the results came out, I was thrilled.”

Mukherjee, a co-author of the publication, had no doubt that Rovito’s work had what it took to win.

“Drug delivery investigation is at the core of our research group, and a lot of the strides we’ve made in modeling and simulation tools have been because of Nick’s efforts,” said Mukherjee, also a faculty member in biomedical engineering (BME) at ŷ���ڱ���Ƶ Boulder. “This is a very complicated problem, and his research is novel. The fact that he was able to win this award three semesters into his PhD pursuit speaks to his great ability to accomplish these technical tasks.”

Rovito hopes to continue improving this model and solving problems related to the clinical challenges of today. Their next steps in this project related to stroke therapy will be in collaboration with the neurology team at the , a frequent collaborator with the FLOWLab.

Beyond his research, Rovito also hopes to translate his technical skills into a long-term teaching career.

“One of my passions is teaching and scientific communication,” he said. “ŷ���ڱ���Ƶ Boulder is a great place for me to continue my technical work and develop as an educator.”

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• Maxwell Anderson – Logistics Manager
• Sean Dunkelman – Systems Engineer
• Christopher Gonzalez – Software Engineer
• Brady King – Electro-mechanical Engineer
• Isaac Martinez – CAD Engineer
• Brad Nam – Manufacturing Engineer
• Caitlyn Robinson – Test Engineer
• Renée Schnettler – Project Manager
• William Wang – Electro-mechanical Engineer
• William Watkins – Financial Manager

Seniors in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of ŷ���ڱ���Ƶ Boulder are designing a new soft robot to improve physicians’ ability to examine the deepest part of a patient’s lung.

Currently, there is only one system that can get down to the bottom of the lungs – a rigid catheter that could potentially cause inflammation. The team of mechanical engineering students are working with medical device company on making the tip of that catheter more flexible.

“Our client is hoping to reduce the strain on the body by replacing the end of the device with something that is very compliant and soft, especially in comparison to the materials that are used today,” said Maxwell Anderson, the team’s logistics manager. “We’re trying to create a soft robot for the tip that will allow the physician to have more control of the end and have it be less abrasive toward the patient.”

The students are tackling this project as part of the department’s Senior Design course. They have spent the academic year researching, designing, molding and testing various iterations of their soft robot prototype.

An iterative design process

The team’s baseline design is a hollow, silicone tube with bubbles on the outside. The bubbles expand as the soft robot is inflated with air pressure, which causes the tube to bend. The students explained that the bending motion is the key aspect of their design, as that configuration is what allows the soft robot to move through the deeper parts of the lung.

“The catheter still does most of the work during the procedure, and then physicians control the soft robot at the very end to just move the tip,” said Renée Schnettler, the team’s project manager. “It can hook into different areas and allow doctors to send a needle through it to take a sample of any lung tissue they are studying.”

The team said they are constantly making new prototypes for testing purposes. The R&D process has resulted in 55 prototypes since fall 2021.  

“A lot of what we’ve been doing is building off of our baseline design,” said Isaac Martinez, the CAD engineer on the team. “We watch how that prototype behaved and try changing certain dimensions. That would be one iteration. Then we change another aspect, like the number of bubbles, and that becomes a second iteration. We’ve been trying to put together this full picture from a lot of different prototypes.”

Each change in the prototype’s design has been targeted and intentional. That includes adjustments to the soft robot’s control system.

“Our control team has spent a lot of time just trying to figure out how we can tell where the tip of the robot is,” said electro-mechanical engineer William Wang. “We have been trying to improve our control systems to hit the desired positions, but each iteration of our prototype behaves slightly different depending on the material properties. We’ve been trying to find more robust techniques to control all of them.”

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Research from the College of Engineering and Applied Science that uses acoustic radiation forces to shape the internal structure of suspended droplets has been published in .

The paper, titled “Acoustically Manipulating Internal Structure of Disk-in-Sphere Endoskeletal Droplets,” is a collaborative work completed by researchers in the Paul M. Rady Department of Mechanical Engineering, the Biomedical Engineering Program and the Materials Science and Engineering Program.

Their work could boost health and drug advancements by giving researchers a better understanding of primary and secondary radiation forces in multiphase colloidal systems – such as emulsions, foams, membranes and gels. Those forces are currently being studied for cell separation for disease diagnoses and drug delivery systems for cancer treatments.

First author Gazendra Shakya, a PhD graduate who worked in the labs of Professors Mark Borden and Xiaoyun Ding, shared how the group came to the more thorough understanding of radiation forces and how the research could benefit future studies.

Can you explain what endoskeletal droplets are and how you used them in this research?

Endoskeletal droplets are tiny liquid droplets that are suspended in an aqueous or water medium. The ones we used are 10 micrometers in diameter, a similar size to biological cells. For comparison, a typical human hair is 100 micrometers in diameter.

The interesting thing about these liquid droplets are that they have a solid skeleton embedded inside them, hence the name endoskeletal droplets. There are different types of endoskeletal droplets but the ones we study in this project have a disk-shaped solid inside the liquid droplet.

What are the real-world impacts from this research? How will the collaborative work benefit society?

The radiation forces are very important in any colloidal system that deals with acoustic waves. For example, these forces are being studied currently for cell separation for disease diagnosis or optimizing drug delivery systems for cancer treatments. But these forces and their behaviors in multiphase colloidal systems have not yet been fully understood. With this current paper, we have gotten a better understanding of the primary and secondary radiation forces.

Moreover, this study demonstrated the possibility of manipulating internal structures of droplets and cells. This can pave the way to manipulating internal organelles in a cell, which is very challenging for current techniques, but could be helpful to understand the communication and function of intracellular organelles.   

Is exploring the internal structure of a droplet this small challenging?

It is very challenging because the internal structure adds a lot of complexity. With that added internal phase, which has different physical and chemical properties, it is very hard to properly explore the behavior of the internal structure.

I think the geometry also played an important part. We have discovered the ideal droplet at the internal phase is not spherical. Instead, it is cylindrical like a flattened disk and free to rotate or move around inside the droplet. This was a major advantage for us because we could now visualize how different forces were affecting the internal structure as it moved and rotated in response. 

How did you use radiation forces to manipulate the structure within the droplet?

Currently, we are using acoustic frequencies which are in the MHz range and hence inaudible. Any particle in an acoustic field experiences a force called the acoustic radiation force. There are two types of radiation forces: the primary radiation force and the secondary radiation force. These two forces have different implications on suspended particles. Since we have particles with two different acoustic properties in a single droplet – liquid and solid properties – they both are affected in different ways.

The liquid droplet is pushed to a specific direction by the primary radiation force and the attractive force from the secondary radiation creates clusters. As for the solid disks inside the droplets, the primary radiation force pushes the disks to the top of the cluster and forces them to be parallel to the substrate, whereas the secondary radiation force pushes it to the edges of the cluster and makes them perpendicular. By manipulating the magnitude of these forces, which can be done by either changing the frequency or the cluster size, we could manipulate the internal structure of the disks.

The other authors on this paper include previous postdoctoral scholar Tao Yang, postdoctoral associate Yu Gao, PhD researcher Apresio K. Fajrial, and professors Baowen Li,Massimo Ruzzene, Mark A. Borden and Xiaoyun Ding.

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Mechanical engineering is one of the broadest engineering disciplines. The versatile degree allows for students to become cross-functional engineers, the leaders in interdisciplinary industries aiming to improve society.

Alumnus Michael Lewis (MechEngr’00) took interdisciplinary to the next level. After graduating with a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering and working at for a year, he discovered another way to help people – through medicine.

Lewis is now a surgeon in the Children’s Heart Center at in Sweden. While the path he took with his engineering degree was nontraditional, Lewis credits the opportunities at the University of ŷ���ڱ���Ƶ Boulder for setting him up for success.

Read more about Lewis’ career from mechanical engineer to pediatric heart surgeon in the Q&A below.

What inspired you to study mechanical engineering before medicine?

I didn’t think I was going to be an engineer right away. I originally wanted to study psychology but quickly learned that wasn’t for me. I also loved music, so I changed my major to classical guitar for a few semesters. I think I must have set the record for credits and classes!

I remember sitting down at two distinct points in my life, trying to figure out what I liked and wanted to be. The first time was in the student union at ŷ���ڱ���Ƶ Boulder. I knew I loved math, science and problem-solving, and applying those studies to real-world issues. That led me to engineering. I figured mechanical engineering was very broad and that I could use that education in various industries.

The second talk I had with myself was in my apartment in Boulder. I thought to myself, “Is there anything else I like doing?” I realized I like being with people and solving problems for humanity. That’s when the lightbulb went off. I knew I wanted to be a doctor. I volunteered at the student health center and realized it was something I could do.

Even with that realization, I still wanted to use my engineering degree. I worked for Boeing as a design engineer for a year and successfully sent two projects to space. It was great and I thought I was well prepared to work, but I knew wanted to pursue medicine. I attended , completed my residency and fellowships in the Midwest and on the East Coast, and finished in 2014. My family moved to Sweden where my wife and I now both work at Lund University Hospital.

Want to learn more?

  Connect with Michael Lewis

What is the value of having a mechanical engineering degree as a surgeon?

If you have ever been in modern medicine – specifically inside an operating room – you can see that there are mechanical engineering needs all over the place. Everything from the heart-lung machine to the sutures that we use have been meticulously engineered. You really become aware of how useful and necessary these tools are to improve and save the patient’s life.

Plus, the basic physiology of the human body and the cardiovascular system is better understood when thinking about the changes in fluid dynamics with temperature or the changes a heart goes through with pressure and volume. My mechanical engineering education has been incredibly useful for developing my skills as a doctor and pediatric heart surgeon.

Both engineering and medicine aim to solve societal challenges. Do you view your interdisciplinary career path through that lens?

Every day. There are times when that idea can get lost in the stress of the work, but then you get a letter from a parent or child that you have operated on. You get a note from a medical student or nurse that you have helped. You see that you’ve made a difference.

I am a bit of an idealist and I think that’s what has made it possible to take this long loop to becoming a doctor. That is why I chose this career and continue to do it today.

What advice do you have for current mechanical engineering students?

Sit down and talk with yourself about what you want out of life. Irrespective of how narrow or broad you want to be as a mechanical engineer, there are options out there for everybody. That will play into every choice you make personally and professionally. Think about where you want to live, how you want to spend your time and what sort of projects do you want to work on. Make a list of the things that are important to you and start there.
 

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Great discoveries lie at the edge of chaos, and nature provides perhaps the best inspiration for finding order in anarchy. Fish school, birds flock, fireflies sync and ants colonize. This type of collective behavior that forms complex and adaptive systems is what scientists refer to as emergence.

Studying emergent behavior has long fascinated engineers, and researchers at the University of ŷ���ڱ���Ƶ Boulder have uncovered a distinct behavior in colonies of fire ants cooperating in flood situations. PhD candidates Robert Wagner, Kristen Such, Ethan Hobbs and Professor Franck Vernerey studied how the ants spontaneously form tether-like protrusions that help them navigate and escape flooded environments.

They found the dynamic shape that the fire ants take on is sustained by competing mechanisms of structural contraction and outward expansion. The researchers hope their work will inspire future studies by providing swarm roboticists and engineers with ant-inspired rules that could help achieve complex functional tasks.

Their research was recently published in the  – titled "Treadmilling and dynamic protrusions in fire ant rafts." Check out the video below to watch how the ants form their own interconnected, floating raft.

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IrLc-uDv7GU]

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