How We Tell Stories

As we tell inspiring, real-world stories of research and educational initiatives, our purpose is to show impact. How is our work shaping a field? What applications will it support? How could it aid a business or industry in developing new products? Does it support public sector priorities, such as reining in environmental hazards and ensuring a sustainable future? Does it meet the national need for a highly skilled STEM workforce? Does it build opportunities, including for students who may come from disadvantaged backgrounds? Most importantly, how will it benefit people—that is, improve health, well-being, safety, and quality of life? We keep questions like these in the forefront as we communicate our news.

That includes, for example, examining the ways our faculty and researchers are responding to the clean energy challenge by providing a framework for the safe use of hydrogen energy. Or pointing to soft robotics research that could yield minimally invasive options for eye or brain surgery. Or showcasing new technologies developed through the Maryland Industrial Partnership Program. Or highlighting our GOALKits program, which has provided thousands of young people in Maryland and Washington, D.C., with experiential learning activities that teach engineering fundamentals. Across areas ranging from AI and robotics to quantum and nanotech, the world looks to our department for pioneering research and education.

Finally, we share stories of the aspirations and achievements of our undergraduate and graduate students. As they progress in their careers, whether as engineers or as consultants, executives, policymakers, or thought leaders, we bring them back to speak to the professional values that they learned while students in our department and showcase their continued engagement, including philanthropic support of scholarships, team-based design experiences, and career development.

You can engage with our stories through multiple channels: news articles and features on our website; our electronic newsletter, ME News; our social media platforms; and our annual print magazine, Metrics. We look forward to learning of your story!

Robert Herschbach
Communications Manager
Department of Mechanical Engineering
University of Maryland

Mechanical Engineering at Maryland is where many roads meet:

• In May 2024, the Center for Environmental Energy Engineering (CEEE) hosted a workshop on Ultra-Low GWP Refrigerants for Refrigeration, Water Heating and HVAC Applications with attendance from national and international manufacturers in the heating, ventilation, air-conditioning and refrigeration industry; safety standards organizations; trade associations, government labs and academe. CEEE will host the 16th IIR-Gustav Lorentzen Conference on Natural Refrigerants in August 2024.
• In June 2024, the Center for Advanced Life Cycle Engineering co-organized the 2024 Symposium on Counterfeit Parts and Materials to raise awareness about the dangers and consequences of using counterfeit materials and to encourage the implementation of measures to prevent and mitigate the spread of counterfeit parts.
• In June 2024, Prof. Johan Larsson co-organized a Summer Research School on Fluid Dynamics with focus on turbulence under the auspices of the Burgers Program for Fluid Dynamics and with support from the National Science Foundation.
• In September 2024, the Center for Risk and Reliability will host a two-day Hydrogen Teaching and Engineering Research Program workshop bringing together experts from industry, government, and academia to address testing, risk, and reliability needs across the growing hydrogen and fuel cell industry and to establish a formal platform for sharing technical solutions to advance the national deployment of hydrogen and fuel cell technologies and infrastructure.
• In June 2025, the Center for Risk and Reliability will organize the 7th IIR Conference on Thermophysical Properties and Transfer Processes of Refrigerants allowing international experts from academia and industry to share the latest information the development of eco-friendly refrigerants with themes including thermophysical property measurements, two-phase flow and distribution issues, novel heat exchanger geometry designs and manufacturing processes, and thermal energy storage processes.

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