ME Seminar: Aaron Parness, Amazon
We are pleased to welcome Aaron Parness from Amazon for the winter ME Chair's Distinguished Industry Lecture.
The Chair's Distinguished Industry Lecture Series is designed to expose faculty and students to the latest trends, research and problems facing a particular industry today; and for industry leaders to present their perspective on these engineering challenges. This series is free and open to public. ME students and alumni are encouraged to attend.
About the speaker:
Aaron Parness works as a Director of Applied Science in Robotics and Artificial Intelligence at Amazon. His teams in Seattle and Berlin build robotic workcells to increase delivery speed and reduce the cost of order fulfillment for Amazon customers. Specializing in high contact and high clutter applications, he has led Amazon’s advances in giving robots a sense of touch by incorporating force and torque sensing into the robots’ motion plans and control loops. Aaron’s work in AI and ML for robotics not only enables robots to…
Event interval: Single day event. Campus room: Interdisciplinary Engineering Building G106. Accessibility Contact: merecept@uw.edu. Event Types: Lectures/Seminars.
Tuesday, January 13, 2026, 1:00 PM – 2:00 PM.
ME Seminar: Dayong Gao, UW ME
We are pleased to welcome Professor Dayong Gao, director of the Center for Cryo-Biomedical Engineering, as an ME seminar speaker.
Freezing and reviving living cells, tissues, and organs: From scientific fiction to realityWith rapid advances and innovations made in the clinical diagnosis and treatment of diseases, there are increasing and urgent needs of using cellular therapy and tissue/organ transplantation to cure acquired diseases. However, millions of people died globally every year, due to the severe shortage of the living biomaterials. The central theme of this presentation is to report on the speaker’s research work and major breakthroughs in developing novel technology for long-term cryopreservation and biobanking of living biomaterials to solve this global crisis.
About the speaker:
Dayong Gao is Professor of the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Director of the Center for Cryo-Biomedical Engineering and Artificial Organs at University of Washington (UW), Seattle, WA. Before joining UW in…
Event interval: Single day event. Campus room: Interdisciplinary Engineering Building G106. Accessibility Contact: merecept@uw.edu. Event Types: Lectures/Seminars.
Tuesday, January 20, 2026, 1:00 PM – 2:00 PM.
ME Seminar: Lin Han, Drexel University
We are pleased to welcome Lin Han, professor at Drexel University's School of Biomedical Engineering, Science and Health Systems, for an ME seminar.
Event interval: Single day event. Campus room: Interdisciplinary Engineering Building G106. Accessibility Contact: merecept@uw.edu. Event Types: Lectures/Seminars.
Tuesday, January 27, 2026, 1:00 PM – 2:00 PM.
PhD Qualifying Examination: Navneet Kaur
Committee Members: Santosh Devasia | Faculty Advisor | Department of Mechanical Engineering , Duane Storti | Departmental Representative | Department of Mechanical Engineering , Ashis Banerjee | Committee Member | Department of Mechanical Engineering , Krithika Manohar | Committee Member | Department of Mechanical Engineering.
Event interval: Single day event. Accessibility Contact: Navneet Kaur. Event Types: Academics.
Tuesday, January 27, 2026, 1:00 PM – 2:30 PM.
Hackathon to design adaptations for people w/ disabilities
Save the date for a hackathon where teams will design adaptations to everyday challenges for people with disabilities!
Students interested in learning about the design and fabrication of such adaptations are encouraged to attend. Saturday, January 31, 12:30-5 p.m. , Bellevue Library Makerspace , Sign-up info to be provided, Attendees will be coached in fabrication skills, including: 3D printing , CAD , lo-fi prototyping , soldering , basic circuitry , sewing , coding, CREATE and HuskyADAPT are partnering with the King County Library System for a second year to host this event.
Bus route suggestion:
From the 15th Ave NE & NE 40th St stop (across from the Population Health building), take the 271 bus until the NE 8th St & 106th Ave NE stop. From there, it is approximately an 11 minute walk to the final destination (1111 110th Ave NE, Bellevue, WA, 98004).
Questions? Email apfist8@uw.edu.
Interested in volunteering to support teams in design and fabrication? Apply by Friday, January 9 at 11:59 p.m.
Event interval: Single day event. Accessibility Contact: apfist8@uw.edu. Event Types: Diversity Equity Inclusion. Special Events. Student Activities. Target Audience: Teams & individuals interested in design/fabrication of adaptations for people w/ disabilities.
Saturday, January 31, 2026, 12:30 PM – 5:00 PM.
Bellevue library.
For more info visit forms.cloud.microsoft. Advanced Composites Center Seminar: Bill Kuykendall
We are pleased to welcome Bill Kuykendall, UW Mechanical Engineering lab engineer, for an Advanced Composites Center (ACC) seminar.
Event interval: Single day event. Campus room: Interdisciplinary Engineering Building G106. Accessibility Contact: merecept@uw.edu. Event Types: Lectures/Seminars.
Tuesday, February 3, 2026, 1:00 PM – 2:00 PM.
ME Seminar: Nicholas Colonnese
We are pleased to welcome Nicholas Colonnese from Meta for an ME seminar.
Event interval: Single day event. Campus room: Interdisciplinary Engineering Building G106. Accessibility Contact: merecept@uw.edu. Event Types: Lectures/Seminars.
Tuesday, February 10, 2026, 1:00 PM – 2:00 PM.
PhD Qualifying Examination: Julian Reis
Committee Members: Alberto Aliseda | Faculty Advisor | Department of Mechanical Engineering , Juan Carlos del Alamo | Departmental Representative | Department of Mechanical Engineering , John Palmore Jr. | Committee Member | Department of Mechanical Engineering , Robert Wood | Committee Member | Department of Atmospheric and Climate Science.
Event interval: Single day event. Accessibility Contact: Julian Reis. Event Types: Academics.
Tuesday, February 17, 2026, 10:00 AM – 11:30 AM.
PhD General Examination: Bahetihazi Maidu
Supervisory Committee Members: Juan C del Alamo | Committee Chair| Department of Mechanical Engineering , Patrick Boyle | GSR | Department of Bioengineering , Alberto Aliseda | Committee Member | Department of Mechanical Engineering , Nazem Akoum | Committee Member | Department of Medicine.
Event interval: Single day event. Accessibility Contact: Bahetihazi Maidu. Event Types: Academics.
Wednesday, February 25, 2026, 10:00 AM – 11:30 AM.
PhD Qualifying Examination: Qixuan Jiang
Committee Members: Jie Xiao | Faculty Advisor | Department of Mechanical Engineering , Xu Chen | Departmental Representative | Department of Mechanical Engineering , Mohmmad Malakooti | Committee Member | Department of Mechanical Engineering , Ting Cao | Committee Member | Department of Materials Science & Engineering.
Event interval: Single day event. Accessibility Contact: Qixuan Jiang. Event Types: Academics.
Thursday, March 5, 2026, 2:30 PM – 4:00 PM.