News

Ben Bazarsuren presents at ASME SMASIS 2026. Ben presents work with coauthors Shane Borowski, Dr. Linnea Hess (University of Hamburg, Germany) and Noah (University of Freiburg, Germany) at the 2026 ASME Conference on Smart Materials, Adaptive Structures and Intelligent Systems in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Addisyn Houey completes a summer internship in Germany. Addisyn traveled to the livMatS Center in Freiburg, Germany, for a six-week NSF-sponsored summer research internship.

Undergraduates present at UMBC's Summer Undergraduate Research Fest. Ben Bazarsuren, Chidube Ibe, Deylon Moy Joseph and Levi Niaba present their research.

Widdowson et al. publish in Integrating Materials and Manufacturing Innovation. A computational homogenization framework for predicting properties from multifield processing conditions in polymer matrix particle composites. Open access. doi:10.1007/s40192-026-00458-1

Christian Bergen earns his PhD from Penn State, Spring 2026. His dissertation is Topology Optimization and Additive Manufacturing of Magnetoactive Elastomer Actuators. Dr. von Lockette advised Christian at Penn State and continued on his doctoral committee after moving to UMBC. Congratulations, Christian.

Kopp et al. publish in Smart Materials and Structures. Kopp, Michelmann, Belyaeva, von Lockette and Shamonin study the magnetic actuation of accordion structures made of magneto-active elastomers, with collaborators in Regensburg, Germany. doi:10.1088/1361-665x/ae55e7

Swapna Kshirsagar completes her master's degree. Her thesis designs and models a multiply-bistable mechanism for a single ventricle defect assistive device. Congratulations, Swapna.

U.S. Patent 12,201,288 issued. Free motion laparoscopic surgical system, with Penn State coinventors J. Moore and S. Galvin.

Zamani et al. in the Journal of Manufacturing Processes. An image-processing framework for assessing print quality in direct ink writing of magnetoactive elastomers.

SMASIS 2025 paper in St. Louis. Bergen, Ounaies and von Lockette present a framework for designing magnetoactive elastomer actuators, from topology optimization through fabrication and actuation.

Bergen, Ounaies and von Lockette in Smart Materials and Structures. Coupled magnetoelastic topology optimization improves actuator performance. It is the lab's first paper with a UMBC affiliation and is open access.

Ben Bazarsuren starts the plant reinforcement project. His work on bio-inspired design rules for structural reinforcement is supported through the Meyerhoff Scholars Program and NSF iPRISM.

Paris joins UMBC as Professor of Mechanical Engineering.

NSF awards the iPRISM IRES grant for international research in sustainable multifunctional materials, with Paris as Co-PI.