mechanical and aerospace engineering

William Nourse’s interest in machines inspired by nature took hold when he watched Jurassic Park as a child. The animatronic dinosaurs were Nourse’s earliest exposure to engineering. As an undergraduate student majoring in mechanical and aerospace engineering at Case Western Reserve University, he...

VTOL CWRU, the university's student-led design team dedicated to advancing Vertical Takeoff & Landing (VTOL) technology through unmanned aircraft, recently competed in the 2025 Design-Build-Vertical Flight Competition. The team's mission was to build an aircraft for wildfire response and the two fli...

CWRU Motorsports, the university’s Baja SAE team, had a record-breaking performance at the Arizona Baja SAE competition in May, earning first place in Design Presentation and first in the 4-hour-long Endurance race categories both first-time wins for the team. The team placed fourth overall out of m...

Robert Gao, the Cady Staley Professor of Engineering and chair of Case Western Reserve University’s Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, has been selected to receive the 2025 SME Gold Medal in recognition of outstanding service to the manufacturing engineering profession in technical ...

Jocelyn Schechter, a BS/MS student in aerospace engineering, was selected for the Ohio Space Grant Consortium Master’s Fellowship, which is administered by NASA. Awards to master’s students for the academic year are $23,400 in addition to tuition waivers. Fellows complete a STEM-related research pr...

Assistant Professor Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Growing up, Zach J. Patterson had a number of engineering role models in his life, most notably, his grandfather. Paired with an interest in math and science, pursuing a career in engineering made complete sense. As an assistant professor i...

Umut Gurkan, Wilbert J. Austin Professor of Engineering, has co-authored a new publication by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. Titled On Leading a Lab: Strengthening Scientific Leadership in Responsible Research, the work explores strategies for fostering ethical and ef...

Chirag Kharangate, assistant professor in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, was awarded the 2024 American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) Electronic & Photonic Packaging Division (EPPD) Early Career Engineer Award at this year’s ASME InterPACK Conference. “It is an hono...

Chirag Kharangate, assistant professor in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, was awarded the 2024 American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) Electronic & Photonic Packaging Division (EPPD) Early Career Engineer Award at this year’s ASME InterPACK Conference. “It is an hono...

Daniel Clare, a third-year student majoring in mechanical and aerospace engineering, has worked late into the night many times at Case Western Reserve University. But it’s not just his studies that keep him up. As the suspension and steering lead on the CWRU Motorsports Baja SAE team, Clare has of...