MEMS Student Wins NASA Award

Seth Strayer, a second year mechanical engineering PhD student, received a prestigious NASA Space Technology Graduate Research Opportunities (NSTGRO) award.

According to the NASA website, the goal of the award is to sponsor U.S. citizen and permanent resident graduate students who show significant potential to contribute to NASA’s goal of creating innovative new space technologies for our Nation’s science, exploration and economic future.

The award will be made in the form of a grant to the University of Pittsburgh on behalf of Strayer, with his faculty advisor, Professor Albert To, serving as the principal investigator. Additionally, Strayer will be matched with a technically relevant and community-engaged NASA Subject Matter Expert, who will serve as the conduit into the larger technical community corresponding to Strayer’s space technology research area. He will also have the opportunity to perform his research at a NASA center, giving him the chance to work collaboratively with leading engineers and scientists in his field of study.

The proposal that won Strayer the award is titled “Development of an Integrated Part-Scale Process-Structure-Fatigue Simulation Framework for Certification of Laser Powder Bed Additive Manufactured Components.”