MNE - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Graduate Student Directory
Job Titles:
- Nuclear Reactor Manager
- Reactor Manager
Job Titles:
- Associate Professor
- Associate Professor / Hal and Mary Siegele Professorship in Engineering
- Director of the Radiological Engineering Analysis Laboratory
Amir Bahadori received bachelor's degrees in mechanical engineering with a nuclear engineering option, and mathematics from Kansas State University in 2008. He then attended graduate school at the University of Florida, studying medical physics and earning a master's degree in 2010. Bahadori was awarded a NASA Graduate Student Research Program Fellowship in 2009, and in summer 2010 worked as an intern at NASA's Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center, or JSC, in the radiation health officer group. He accepted a full-time position as a NASA contractor in October 2010 and earned his Ph.D. degree from the University of Florida in December 2012. Bahadori became a NASA civil servant in January 2013 with the space radiation analysis group at NASA JSC. In his time there he substantially upgraded the tools used to calculate astronaut risk from medical exams involving ionizing radiation, coordinated astronaut radiation-risk reporting, led particle accelerator-based data collection and served as principal scientist for the advanced exploration systems rad works radiation environment monitor project. In December 2015 Bahadori joined the department of mechanical and nuclear engineering at K-State as an assistant professor and in March 2021 he was promoted to associate professor with tenure.
Bahadori is the director of the Radiological Engineering Analysis Laboratory, or REAL, at K-State. His research is focused on the characterization of radiation environments, understanding the response of humans and electronics to radiation exposure using both experimental and computational techniques, and radiation imaging. Bahadori has collaborated with researchers in the Space Radiation Analysis Group at NASA JSC on advanced space radiation detection instruments for the Artemis missions and development of novel active-shielding architectures to enable long-term exploration missions to the moon and Mars. He has worked on several Department of Energy-funded projects through the plant-directed research and development program at the Kansas City National Security Campus in Kansas City, Missouri, on topics including x-ray dosimetry for electronic components and development of novel GaN-based radiation detectors. Bahadori also studies use of advanced computational phantoms in bioheat transfer applications.
Job Titles:
- Assistant Dean for Retention, Diversity and Inclusion and Associate Professor
- Associate Professor / Assistant Dean for Retention, Diversity and Inclusion
- Research
Amy Betz received her bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering from the George Washington University and her master's and doctoral degrees from Columbia University. In 2011, she moved from the Big Apple to the Little Apple and began developing the Multiphase Microfluidics Laboratory. Prior to her academic career, Betz worked in the hospitality industry as a manager of a recreation facility, a restaurant and a spa in a five-star hotel.
Job Titles:
- Member of Tau Beta Pi
- Professor
Beck is a member of Tau Beta Pi, Sigma Xi, ASEE, Pi Tau Sigma, ASME, Phi Kappa Phi, SPIE and ASHRAE honorary and professional societies. He has served the professional engineering community as chair of the ASHRAE Fundamentals Handbook Revision Committee since 2005. He has been chair of numerous other ASHRAE committees and sub-committees, including TC1.2 Measurements and Instruments. He has served as chair to the ASME Young Engineers Paper Contest for more than 10 years. He has served as a technical reviewer for ASHRAE Transactions, ASME Journal of Fluids Engineering, McGraw Hill, Macmillan, Applied Mechanics Reviews and The International Journal of Nuclear Energy Science and Technology.
Job Titles:
- Departmental Faculty Chair in Mechanical and Nuclear Engineering Director, Semiconductor Materials and Radiological Technologies Laboratory
Lare's teaching focus is the area of control of mechanical systems. She is a member of the American Society of Engineering Education (ASEE).
Dr. Gurpreet Singh received his B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Government College of Engineering Pune in India. He then went on to pursue M.S. (thesis option) and PhD degrees in Mechanical Engineering from University of Colorado at Boulder in 2006 and 2007, respectively. He then worked as postdoctoral associate at Institute of Critical Technologies at Virginia Tech before joining Kansas State in August 2009.
Job Titles:
- Associate Professor
- Research
Dr. Melanie Derby received her B.S. degree in Mechanical Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 2008. She then joined an Office of Naval Research-sponsored MURI project at RPI for graduate study, under the direction of Profs. Michael Jensen and Yoav Peles. At RPI, she studied condensation heat transfer and received her M.S. in 2010 and Ph.D. in May 2013. In August 2013, she joined the faculty at Kansas State University and researches thermal-fluids problems pertaining to the Food, Energy, and Water Nexus
Professional experience
Gennifer Riley holds bachelor's degrees in physics and mechanical engineering from Washburn University and Kansas State University, respectively. She is currently completing her doctorate in mechanical engineering at K-State. During this time, she has been a GTA for Thermodynamics 1, Thermodynamics 2 and Heat Transfer. She has also been the instructor of record for Thermodynamics 1 during the summers of 2021 and 2022.
Department head welcome
Job Titles:
- Assistant Professor
- Professor
Professional experience
Professor Greg Spaulding received a B.S. Degree in Mechanical Engineering from Kansas State University in 1980. From 1980 to 1983 he worked at General Dynamics and was assigned to Mechanical / Hydraulic System Analysis, specifically involved in working on the update of the F-16 fighter aircraft. In 1983, he returned to Kansas State University where he received a MS Degree in Mechanical Engineering in the area of Automated Control Systems. Upon completion of this degree he returned to industry, working as a Research Engineer at Houston Instruments. Where he was intimately involved in the development of a digital control system for the new generation plotters, and received a patent for his work in development of a tensioning system for belt drives. After four years at Houston Instruments Prof Spaulding returned to Kansas to pursue his dream of starting his own company, this dream resulted in the company, ScriptPro. Spaulding cofounded and served as President and Head of Engineering for this start-up. The company developed an automation system for pharmacies that is currently used worldwide. For this work he was awarded a patent. After the sale of the company in 1996 Spaulding took a teaching position at Kansas State - Salina in the Mechanical Engineering Technology Department where he taught for twelve years rising to the rank of Full Professor before transitioning to the Manhattan Campus in 2007. Professor Spaulding is also a Registered Professional Engineer in the State of Kansas.
Research
Spaulding's research targeted the applied research with application to Industry. Some of the companies that Spaulding has worked with are:
Caterpillar, Philips Lighting, Koch Industries, Tony's, El Dorado Bus, Great Plains Manufacturing, Grain Belt, Bradbury, Orthopedic Research Institute, Pop-A-Shot, Johnson Rock, Premier Pneumatics Inc., Mid-States Energy Works, Johnson Rack, Geoprobe Inc., Makovec Construction, Grasshopper, Kelso Oil, Exline, Garmin, John Deere, SPX.
Professional experience
Dr. Xin received a B.S. degree in engineering mechanics from the University of Science and Technology of China in 1985. After a period of graduate study in Qinghua University, China, he was awarded a Sino-British Friendship Scholarship from the British Council and admitted to the University of Sheffield for Ph.D. study in 1988. He obtained a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from the University of Sheffield in 1992. He then worked as a post-doctoral researcher in the University of Cambridge from 1993 to 1995, and in the Ohio State University from 1995 to 1998. He joined the Mechanical and Nuclear Engineering Department at Kansas University as an assistant professor in 1998 and as an associate professor in 2003.
Research
Xin's research is focused on computational mechanics, micromechanics, and materials. Early in his career, he developed a micromechanics-based fatigue growth model which enabled the prediction of fatigue crack growth in materials with grain microstructures, and validated it with experiments in Al-Li alloys. His work in dislocation mechanics solved several open problems in the dislocation field including dislocation loop generation from inhomogeneities, dislocation movement across grain boundaries, and microcrack formation, coalescence, and growth. He developed a general Finite Segment Method for the investigation of bulging and sweeping of dislocations under arbitrary force field. His research of cyclic powder compaction of metal matrix composites provided insight into the hyperplastic deformation of heterogeneous metal powders under cyclic loading. More recently, Dr. Xin's research targeted computational mechanics including Finite Element Method, Meshless Method, and Peridynamics with applications in fracture and composite materials.
Jan Levin made a transformative investment to name the department. This investment will empower the department to recruit and retain top faculty, support deserving students and provide flexible funding for department leaders to take advantage of emerging opportunities.
Job Titles:
- Assistant Professor
- CAT Lab Director
- Director of the Multifunctional Structures Lab
Dr. Hobeck is the director of the Multifunctional Structures Lab (MSL) at K-State. The research performed at MSL ultimately seeks to develop advanced structural systems capable of active or passive vibration suppression, monitoring their own structural integrity, remembering extreme or traumatic events, providing advanced damage detection warnings, environmental sensing, and scavenging enough ambient energy to power the entire system making it automated and self-sustaining. Structures with these capabilities will have unprecedented safety, performance, and reliability thus drastically reducing inspection and maintenance costs for industries including aerospace, automotive, and civil infrastructure.
Job Titles:
- Associate Professor
- Professor
Professor Roberts joined the Department of Mechanical and Nuclear Engineering in fall of 2013, where he teaches and researches in the areas of computational and nuclear engineering. Previously, he completed graduate work in nuclear engineering at Wisconsin (under Prof. Paul Wilson) and MIT (under Prof. Benoit Forget) and undergraduate work at Wisconsin (under Prof. Douglass Henderson). Professor Roberts spent several summers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory as a student researcher and one academic year abroad at Tampeeren Teknillinen Yliopisto (under Prof. Robert Piché).
Professor Roberts and his Computation and Optimization for Reactor Physics Simulation (CORPS) Group perform research in computational reactor physics. A primary focus of his current work is the development and analysis of high-fidelity benchmark experiments for validation of next-generation numerical models. Other work has led to novel algorithms for reactor physics calculations on a variety of computer architectures.
Prof. Roberts is the author or co-author of eight journal papers and 18 conference papers. He currently advises four graduate students and is PI for over $1 million of externally-funded research.
Job Titles:
- Carl and Mary Ice Keystone Research Scholar
Job Titles:
- Teaching Associate Professor
Job Titles:
- Teaching Assistant Professor
Jan Levin made a transformative investment to name the department. This investment will empower the department to recruit and retain top faculty, support deserving students and provide flexible funding for department leaders to take advantage of emerging opportunities.
Job Titles:
- ABET Executive Committee Member and Chair
- ASME Vice President for Education
- Department Head
- Director of IER
- Director of the Institute for Environmental Research
- Director of the University Engineering Alliance
- Fellow of the American Society of Heating
- Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers
- Member of the Council
- Professor and Director of the University Engineering Alliance
- Research
Professor Hosni is a Professor and Director of the University Engineering Alliance at Kansas State University. He joined the faculty in mechanical engineering at Kansas State University in 1991 and in 1993 assumed a leadership role as the director of the Institute for Environmental Research (IER), a multidisciplinary research center at Kansas State, where he was responsible for development of research programs in human thermal comfort and indoor air distribution. He served as the director of IER until 2001 when he was named department head of mechanical and nuclear engineering (MNE). After serving eight years as the MNE department head, he was appointed as the Director of the University Engineering Alliance in 2009.
During his tenure at the institute, he oversaw the design and construction of three new environmental chambers and complete renovation of the entire research facility. He was responsible for the growth of extramural research funding to nearly $800,000 per year. His tenure as department head resulted in considerable growth in undergraduate enrollment (490 to 680 students), extramural funding ($3.3M to $5.3M), and development of a distance MS program in mechanical engineering, and rebirth of the nuclear engineering.
Dr. Hosni served as the ASME Vice President for Education and currently is serving as a member of the Council on Standards and Certification of ASME. He is also active at ASHRAE, serving on the Publishing and Education Council. Dr. Hosni is the ABET Executive Committee member and Chair Training Committee. Professor Hosni is a Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) and a Fellow of the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating, and Air-conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE).
Professor Hosni has been principal and Co-principal investigator on over 50 grants and contracts funded by the National Science Foundation, Department of Energy, US Department of Defense, US Department of Transportation ( FAA), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), American Society of Heating, Refrigerating, Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE), Steelcase North America, Black &Veatch, Ford Motor Company, USAID, Visteon, Boeing, etc. For the past 12 years, Dr. Hosni and his research colleagues have been studying issues of air distribution, human thermal comfort, and gaseous and particulate contaminant transport within wide body mockup aircraft cabin.
Dr. Hosni has been active in teaching, research, and service. He obtained a certificate in Management and Leadership in Education, Management Development Program (MDP), from Harvard Graduate School of Education, Harvard University, in 2006. He also received a certificate in Mediation and Conflict Resolution from Kansas State University in 2001.
Professor Hosni has taught 15 different undergraduate and three graduate level courses at three different universities. He is a recipient of the Myers-Alford Teaching Excellence Award, and Bob and Lila Snell Distinguished Career Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching.
Dr. Hosni has served the university, local community, and professional organizations in various capacities, including a member of the KSU Presidential Search Committee, a Board member and Vice President for CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocate), Chair of technical committees, member of International Advisory Committees, etc. He service recognition includes a Dedicated Service Award from ASME, an Exceptional Service Award from ASHRAE, and the International Educator of the Year Award from Kansas state University.
Job Titles:
- University Distinguished Professor
Prof. Douglas McGregor received B.A. (1985) and M.S. (1989) degrees, both in electrical engineering at Texas A&M University. He then received M.S. (1992) and Ph.D. (1993) degrees, both in nuclear engineering from the University of Michigan. From 1994 to 1996 he held a post doctoral position at Sandia National Laboratory and then returned to the University of Michigan where he was an assistant research professor from 1997 to 2002. In 2002, he came to K-State as an associate professor and was promoted to professor in 2008. In 2015, he was awarded the rank of University Distinguished Professor and he holds the Boyd D. Brainard Chair in Mechanical and Nuclear Engineering.
Raj Kumar Pal received his bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering from the National Institute of Technology, Trichy, India, followed by his master's degree in the same field from the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India. He then worked in industry for a year before starting doctoral graduate studies at the University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign. He earned a Ph.D. in theoretical and applied mechanics in 2015, followed by postdoctoral appointments in the School of Aerospace Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, 2015-18, and in the mechanical and civil engineering department at the California Institute of Technology, 2018-19. In August 2019 Pal joined the mechanical and nuclear engineering department at Kansas State University as an assistant professor.
Job Titles:
- Professor
- Teaching Assistant Professor
Professor Ronald Brockhoff received a B.S. Degree in Nuclear Engineering from Kansas State University in 1992 and subsequently received a M.S. Degree in Nuclear Engineering in 1994. He also worked in the X6 Theoretical Physics Division at Los Alamos National Laboratory from 1993 to 1997. He held a Q-Level Security Clearance during this period and published a series of papers related to the use of MCNP for radiation transport and medical imaging analysis. In 1998 Dr. Brockhoff worked briefly in the CIS department at Topeka Technical College before taking a new position as a software engineer at Networks Plus in Manhattan, KS. Dr. Brockhoff continued in this capacity before forming his own software development company called Stasyx, Inc. in 2003. Dr. Brockhoff has acted as the president of this corporation since its inception and is proficient in many programming languages including VB.Net, C#, C++, Java, and Xcode. During Dr. Brockhoff's tenure at Stasyx he returned to Kansas State University and completed a Ph.D. in Nuclear Engineering in 2004. Recently Dr. Brockhoff stepped back from his daily activities at Stasyx to join the faculty at Kansas State University.
Job Titles:
- Fellow
- Founder
- Professor
- Professor of Mechanical and Nuclear Engineering
- Research
Shih-Kang Fan received his B.S. degree from National Central University, Taiwan in 1996, and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) in 2001 and 2003, respectively, all in mechanical engineering. In 2004 he joined the faculty at National Chiao Tung University, Taiwan as an assistant professor and was promoted to an associate professor in the Institute of Nanotechnology and the department of material sciences. From 2012-19 he was with the department of mechanical engineering and the Center for Biotechnology at National Taiwan University, Taiwan as an associate professor, professor and distinguished professor. He is now a professor of mechanical and nuclear engineering at Kansas State University. Fan is an RSC fellow and founder of a start-up company.
Job Titles:
- Keystone Research Scholar
Job Titles:
- Department Head and Professor
Steven M. and Kay L. Theede Chair in Engineering
Director of the Institute for Environmental Research