Cho wins prestigious DARPA Young Faculty Award
Mechanical engineering Assistant Professor Hanna Cho recently received the Young Faculty Award from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).
The award identifies and engages rising stars in junior faculty positions in academia early in their careers to develop innovative new research enabling transformative capabilities for the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD). DARPA is an agency of DoD responsible for the development of emerging technologies for use by the military.
Over the next two years, Cho will receive $499,769 in support of her research to utilize intentional nonlinearity constructively to manipulate the mechanical resonance to achieve performance otherwise unattainable in linear settings. The research will investigate the structural nonlinearities in both analytical and experimental ways. Findings from this study will provide optimal strategies to manipulate and optimize the nonlinear properties in the design of microelectromechanical systems (MEMS), producing transformative applications using resonant devices for sensing, energy harvesting and signal processing
“This is an extremely competitive award and a recognition of Professor Cho’s excellence in research," said Vish Subramaniam, chair, Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering. "We are very proud of her achievement and wish her much success in her innovative research.”
Cho’s research laboratory, the Micro/Nano Multi-physical Dynamics Laboratory, is focused on various multi-physical dynamics problems at micro/nanoscales. Advances in micro/nano-scale fabrication techniques have led to the extensive development of microelectromechanical systems (MEMS), many of which employ a mechanical resonator to achieve their exceptional sensitivity for sensing by tracking the change of a sharp resonant peak. In the early development stage, MEMS devices were mostly designed to operate in their linear resonant modes. However, mechanical resonators at micro/nano-scale can easily exhibit nonlinear resonances because of 'low damping.’ Once nonlinear resonance is triggered, the MEMS devices no longer have a sharp peak to be used for superior sensing. Subsequently, the nonlinearity in MEMS is often considered detrimental.
Prior to joining Ohio State in 2015, Cho was an assistant professor of mechanical engineering at Texas Tech University. She earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in mechanical engineering from Yonsei University, South Korea in 2002 and 2004, and earned a PhD in mechanical science and engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2012.
contributions from Dept. of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
