Mechanical Engineering Welcomes New Faculty

Leila Ladani joins the Mechanical Engineering Department. Dr. Ladani received her PhD at the University of Maryland in 2007. Her research expertise spans additive manufacturing, manufacturing of nanomaterial and micro/nanoelectronics, material characterization and mechanics, and multi-scale modeling and simulation. Most recently, she was an assistant professor at the University of Alabama.

Michael Pettes joins the Mechanical Engineering Department. He received his PhD from the University of Texas at Austin in 2011 and brings expertise in thermal transport physics at the micro- and nano-scale, and engineering of materials at the nanoscale for energy conversion and storage applications. Dr. Pettes was a post-doctoral researcher at UT Austin prior to joining UConn. Earlier, he served as an infantry officer in the United States Marine Corps.

David Pierce joins the Mechanical Engineering Department and the Department of Mathematics. He received his PhD from Stanford University in 2007.  Dr. Pierce’s research expertise includes computational and experimental solid (bio)mechanics, finite element methods, biomechanics of cartilage and arteries, reliability prediction and design tools for MEMs. He was an assistant professor and Vice Head of the Institute of Biomechanics at Graz University of Technology, Austria.