ME News

When the novel coronavirus hit the United States in January, Virginia Tech faculty recognized the nation was on the brink of a COVID-19 pandemic that would affect the university and the entire Commonwealth of Virginia. Hear the inside story about what happened during a virtual HokieTalk at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 30.

Virginia Tech is celebrating five years as a member site of the center, which is a multi-university Industry/University Cooperative Research Center sponsored by the National Science Foundation.

Two Virginia Tech professors are part of a team focused on developing new technology for the virtual world: a full-body experience in a fully electronic environment.

The 2020 inductees were selected from among approximately 68,000 living Virginia Tech engineering alumni. Each academy member has made sustained contributions in engineering and/or leadership throughout illustrious careers.

In a study published by Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, Ling Li’s research team investigated the internal microstructure of cuttlebone, a highly porous internal shell designed by nature to be extremely lightweight, stiff, and damage-tolerant.

Research expenditures are up and sponsored awards have increased by 15 percent, building upon the prior year’s expenditure total of $542 million, despite the impact of COVID-19 felt nationally by higher education institutes, according to preliminary fiscal year-end reports.

Led by mechanical engineering professor Chris Williams, the DREAMS lab has designed a novel respirator using rapid tooling and 3D printing resources from on-campus makerspaces and research labs.

Moore, a professor in the Department of Chemistry, has been named as director of the Virginia Tech Macromolecules Innovation Institute, an interdisciplinary science and engineering research center.

Over the past 25 years, Virginia Tech researchers have earned 171 National Science Foundation Early Career Development Awards (CAREER). For the 2020 fiscal year, 14 Virginia Tech early career scientists and engineers have been granted CAREER awards, totaling over $4 million in research funding.

After the TECH Together Campaign launched in July, a whopping 76 applications from 20 different colleges and departments were submitted. Of those, 10 finalists and 5 winners have been chosen to implement their creative, innovative, and integrated solutions for the reopening of Virginia Tech campuses this fall.