ME welcomes new faculty members
August 28, 2017
The Mechanical Engineering department welcomes Assistant Professors Like Li, Matthew Priddy, Christopher Barrett, and Wil Whittington, and Assistant Clinical Professor, Shane Brauer.
Like Li received his B.S. and M.S. degrees in Mechanical Engineering from Central South University and Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics in China, in 2007 and 2010, respectively. Dr. Li received his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Florida in 2013. He continued his postdoctoral work in the Solar Fuels Team with faculty and students from the departments of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Chemical Engineering, and Materials Science and Engineering at the University of Florida from 2013 to 2015. He also worked as a Postdoctoral Associate in the Department of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering at the University of Pittsburgh from 2015 to 2016. Before joining Mississippi State University, Dr. Li worked as a fixed-term faculty (2016-2017) in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Michigan State University. Dr. Li’s research is focused on computational modeling of multiscale transport phenomena in thermo-fluids systems and energy conversion and storage systems, with applications to micro pore-scale reactive materials and structures design, thermochemical and electrochemical reactors design and optimization, cooling of high power devices and systems, and modeling of microfluidics and biomimetic systems. He has received several awards including the University of Florida MAE Department Outstanding Graduate Research Award in 2014, NSF Travel Award in 2014, Top 1 Most Downloaded Journal of Computational Physics Articles in 2013, Top 10 Most Downloaded ASME Journal of Heat Transfer Articles in 2011, and the National Scholarship at Central South University, China in 2004.
Matthew W. Priddy received his B.S. and M.S. degrees in Civil Engineering from Mississippi State University in 2008 and 2010, respectively. Dr. Priddy received his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology in 2016 where he received the President’s Fellowship from 2010-2014. His graduate research combined the use of physics-based models with high-throughput experimental datasets and rapid inverse structure-property estimates to accelerate decision-support for materials design exploration. Dr. Priddy’s research is focused on the development of multiphysics and microstructure-sensitive finite element models for informing design decisions, including material selection and optimization. Example areas of research interest include those of expensive experimentation (e.g., additive manufacturing of Ti-64) and unique designs (e.g., mass concrete with UHPC). Dr. Priddy was previously a visiting assistant professor in the ME department at MSU.
Christopher Barrett received his B.S in Mechanical Engineering from Mississippi State University in 2010. He received a PhD in Engineering from MSU in 2014 and received the MSU research award in the Engineering Graduate category. Dr. Barrett was employed as a post-doctoral associate at the Center for Vehicular Systems at MSU from 2014 to 2017 before joining the Mechanical Engineering department faculty. Dr. Barrett’s research is focused on the analysis and prediction of material properties based on low length-scale modeling. He has applied these models to study properties and interactions between dislocations, grain boundaries, and twins in hexagonal close-packed metals. He has written over 20 peer-reviewed journals and conference papers on these topics. Dr. Barrett has also contributed code to the LAMMPS open-source project and written open-source software for atomistic potential calibration.
Wilburn Whittington received his B.S. and PhD degrees in Mechanical Engineering from Mississippi State University in 2010 and 2015, respectively. Dr. Whittington was employed at the Center for Advanced Vehicular Systems (CAVS) from 2010 to 2017 as an engineer and worked on several research projects regarding mechanical testing and characterization. During this time, he has accumulated over 30 publications peer-reviewed journals, conferences and patents. Dr. Whittington’s research is focused on dynamic mechanics of materials, with an emphasis on experimental design including Hopkinson Bars and intermediate strain rate methods.
Shane Brauer received his B.S. and Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from Mississippi State University in 2010 and 2017, respectively. Dr. Brauer’s research experience started during his undergraduate studies on Combined Cooling, Heating, and Power (CCHP) systems where his focus was on modeling thermal storage systems and analyzing the cost effectiveness of CCHP systems. His graduate research was on microstructure-mechanical property relationships of iron-based alloys. Dr. Brauer combined experimental, computational, and theoretical research to further develop an Internal State Variable (ISV) plasticity-damage model for use with materials experiencing Dynamic Strain Aging. He taught and co-taught several mechanical engineering courses while seeking his doctorate. He is an energetic professor that enjoys breaking down complex engineering topics to help educate the next generation of mechanical engineers.