Welcome to the MEGA Alumni Podcast!
This is a new endeavor we are initiating from Fall 2023. We will be uploading all the podcast episodes on our YouTube channel. Please subscribe and share with fellow MAE alumni to follow for podcast episodes and MEGA updates. For feedback, questions or comments contact Nehal Jajal(.2) via email or LinkedIn.
Available Episodes:
Episode 13 – Isaac Bensignor – He completed his bachelors and masters from OSU and graduated in 2022. While he was completing his Masters, he also served as the president for MEGA. After that he continued to worked as an aerospace research engineer at OSU for a year. He is now working towards his PhD from TU Delft in the Netherlands. His research focus has largely been to understand rotor mechanics and aerodynamics. Check out a cool picture of him making the rotor he showed on our youtube posts page here! You can check out his LinkedIn page here.
Episode 12 – Dr. Robert Siston – He received his undergraduate degree in Mechanical Engineering from OSU in 2000 and subsequently his Masters and PhD in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford in 2002 and 2005, respectively. After an additional year of post-doc at Stanford he returned the MAE department of OSU as an assistant professor. Since then, he has held various leadership positions in the department, directing the Department’s undergraduate research program (Aug 2011- Aug 2019), serving as the Associate Chair for Administration (July 2019-Aug 2021), and the Interim Chair of the Department (Aug 2021- Jan 2023) before becoming the Chair in February 2023. Find out more here.
Episode 11 – Dr. Kelsey Shaler – She graduated with her PhD in Mechanical Engineering from OSU in 2018. Subsequently she worked at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) for 4 years as a postdoc and research engineer. Since 2022, she has been working at Shell as an offshore wind researcher.
Episode 10 – Dr. S. Unnikrishnan Nair – He completed his PhD from OSU in 2016 and continued to be a postdoc at OSU till 2020. Since 2020 he has been an Assistant Professor, Mechanical Engineering, at FAMU-FSU College of Engineering. His research focus is in the aerospace area and utilizing high-fidelity numerical simulations and state of the art analysis techniques for better understanding complex flow fields. Find more about him and his lab here.
Episode 9 – Mohamad Al Nashar – He completed his BS and MS at OSU and graduated in 2021. Since then he has been working at Honda R&D as a NVH (Noise, Vibration and Harshness) CAE (Computer Aided Engineering) Engineer. You can connect with Mohamad on LinkedIn here.
Episode 8 – Dr. Sarah Roelker – She completed her B.S. in Biomedical Engineering at The Ohio State University. She remained at Ohio State to complete her graduate work in Mechanical Engineering. Following the completion of her PhD in 2017, Dr. Roelker worked as a Post-Doctoral Researcher at UT Austin until 2020 when she began her current position as an Assistant Professor at University of Massachusetts Amherst. You can find more information about her work here.
Episode 7 – Dr. Ata Esfahani – He completed his Masters at OSU in 2017 and graduated from OSU with his PhD in 2022. Since then he has worked as a senior propulsion engineer at Virgin Galactic and is currently working in Gulfstream as a flight test engineer. Connect with him on LinkedIn here.
Episode 6 – Ben Kellie – He has an MS in Mechanical Engineering from the Ohio State University. He is an Alaskan entrepreneur who brings over a decade of experience in deep tech startups and aerospace, as well as twenty years of remote logistics and critical operations management. He now serves as the Entrepreneur in Residence at the Center for Economic Development at UAA helping serve diverse entrepreneurs across the state. Most recently, Ben successfully exited “The Launch Company,” a bootstrapped aerospace startup that specialized in autonomous rocket launch ground systems and logistics, to Voyager Space. He previously founded K2 Dronotics, an Alaskan UAV startup, and served as a lead engineer at SpaceX.
Episode 5 – Dr. Elena Caruthers – She graduated from OSU with her PhD in 2017 and since then she has been at Otterbein University, currently serving as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Engineering, Computer Science & Physics. Her area of research is largely in biomechanics with emphasis on day to day movements. Find more information here.
Episode 4 – Dr. Michael Hudoba – He graduated from OSU in 2016 with his Ph.D. He was the first graduate student in Dr. Castro’s lab and his research focused on DNA based nanomachines. Since then, he has been at Otterbein University, currently an Associate Professor and Department Chair of the Engineering and Computer Science Department. You can find more details here.
Episode 3 – Katie Gears – She graduated with a master’s degree from OSU in 2021. Since then, she has been working as a New Product Development Mechanical Design Engineer in the Emergency Care Patient Transport division at Stryker Medical.
Episode 2 – Dr. Sarah Watzman – She graduated with a PhD from OSU in 2018. Since then she has been at the University of Cincinnati, currently as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering. Her research interests focus on thermal energy conversion, thermoelectric and thermomagnetic conversion and topological materials. You can find more details here.
Episode 1 – Abhijit Kale – He was the former treasurer of MEGA and graduated with a Masters degree from OSU in 2022. He is currently working at Spatial (Dassault Systems) as a software developer. You can connect with him on LinkedIn here.
Special Episodes:
We have 3 guests for this webinar from different career paths!
Dr. Sarah Roelker is an Assistant Professor of Kinesiology and the Director of the Neuromuscular Biomechanics Laboratory at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She earned her PhD in Mechanical Engineering from Ohio State University, where her research explored age-related differences in neuromuscular control during walking. Dr. Roelker’s postdoctoral work at the University of Texas at Austin focused on how muscles contribute to dynamic balance in older adults and stroke survivors. Find out more about her and connect with her on LinkedIn here.
Dr. Sai Krishna Kanth Hari is a Research Scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), where his work spans infrastructure network optimization, UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) routing, and task scheduling, as well as vehicle localization. He holds a PhD from Texas A&M University, where his research centered on optimal UAV route planning and autonomous vehicle localization. Find out more about him and connect with him on LinkedIn here.
Dr. Shobhit Gupta is a Propulsion Control Researcher in Energy and Propulsion Systems at General Motors Research and Development. He earned his PhD from the Ohio State University’s Center for Automotive Research, where he focused on trajectory optimization and control of connected and autonomous electric vehicles (CAV-xEVs). Find out more about him and connect with him on LinkedIn here.
Have you been contemplating your next steps after a PhD? Are you curious about the suitability of pursuing a postdoc? Join us for MEGA’s webinar After your PhD: a panel discussion on Post-Docs, where we will have faculty and post-docs talk about their experiences and advice on post-doctoral opportunities. We will cover topics such as the pros and cons of post-docs, how to find and engage with mentors, and the timing for seeking post-doc positions, among others.
Invited Panelists: Faculty: Dr. Carlos Castro, Dr. Marcello Canova
Post-docs: Dr. Wolfgang Pfeifer, Dr. James Tan, Dr. Mehmet Ozkan, Dr. Anjelica Kucinic