Congratulations to the Mason PEP team on their 2nd place finish in the “unmanned” category of ASNE’s Promoting Electric Propulsion competition held at the 2021 Multi-Agency Craft Conference (MACC). This represented the culmination of three senior design team’s efforts – a hull team and propulsion team in the 2019-2020 academic year, and a holistic team to pull it all together in the 2020-2021 academic year. Despite pandemic, these students’ hard work paid off the minute their boat entered the water. Proud of y’all. Well done!
Category Archives: Alumni
Undergrad researcher Cheryl Blanchard wraps up commercial fishing sleep monitoring device prototyping effort
Cheryl did great work during the Spring term of 2021 looking at developing a purpose-built device to measure sleep aboard a fishing vessel, taking into consideration constraints we’ve seen with commercial off the shelf devices. Check out her presentation at: https://celebration.oscar.gmu.edu/development-of-a-prototype-sleep-monitoring-device-for-use-in-the-commercial-fishing-environment/.
CDR Brook Sherman becomes Commanding Officer USCG Base Elizabeth City
Congratulations to Vessel Dynamics lab alum Brook Sherman – USCG Base Elizabeth City is in good hands!
A coupled SPH-FEM Solver for Modeling Surface Effect Ship (SES) Bow Seal Dynamics
Gilbert, J. and McCue, L., “A coupled SPH-FEM Solver for Modeling Surface Effect Ship (SES) Bow Seal Dynamics,” Virtual 39th International Conference on Ocean, Offshore & Arctic Engineering (OMAE) 2020, June 28-July 3, 2020.
Vessel Dynamics Lab Alum Rosa Avalos-Warren in the News
Vessel Dynamics Lab alum Rosa Avalos-Warren is making news for her support of the SpaceX Crew Dragon launch. Check out NASA Goddard’s website to read the full story! So proud of you Rosa!
Moises Angulo joins research team!
Moises is a senior studying Mechanical Engineering at George Mason University. He is currently working on doing high speed planing hull simulations to represent the Generic Prismatic Planing Hull (GPPH). After graduation, he plans on going to grad school to pursue a PhD in Aerospace Engineering. Outside of academia you can find him reading fiction novels, playing super smash bros, and working out.
Welcome Dhawal Bhanderi!
Evan Lee receives job promotion!
Evan has been selected as a project lead in the newly formed Research and Development Execution Branch at Combatant Craft Division.
David Hansch, MS
Davy Hansch completed an interesting study on the influence of water depth on roll damping and roll period. Read it online here.
Lauren Hanyok, MS
Lauren Hanyok’s fascinating master’s thesis studied motion induced interruptions for a space capsule at splash down.
W. Robert Story, MS
Rob Story’s 2009 MS thesis looking at application of Lypaunov exponents to anticipate intact and damaged stability issues won a Conference of Southern Graduate Schools’ ETD Master’s Thesis Award in the “Innovative Application of Technology to Scholarship in a Master’s Thesis” category.
Divyanshu Agarwal, MS
Divy Agarwal did a very interesting MS thesis studying how fractional differential equations can be used to model roll damping. His thesis is available online.
Evan Lee, PhD
Evan Lee’s 2014 doctoral dissertation advanced the state of the art of our understanding of the hydrodynamics of stepped planing hulls. Read his thesis online here.
Michele Cooper, PhD
Michele Cooper’s PhD presented a holistic look at numerous challenges related to ship dynamics, from control design, to neural network prediction, to verification and validation. Download her outstanding thesis here.
John Gilbert, PhD
Dr. John Gilbert completed his PhD in June of 2015. His research included development of an accelerated coupled solver for fluid-structure interaction problems. His thesis can be found here, and he is currently research faculty at Virginia Tech.
Stephanie Sherman, MS
Stephanie Sherman completed her excellent MS on “Quantifying the Effects of Uncertainty in a Decentralized Model of the National Airspace System” in 2015. Read it online here.
David Allen, MS
David Allen wrapped a nice bow around the EUROPA project work with his MS thesis defended in October of 2014. His thesis is available online here.
David Hickerson, MS
David Hickerson successfully defended his MS in July of 2013. In his research he used computational fluid dynamics simulations to study a sailboat heaving-to in a storm. His complete thesis is available online here.
Lauren Hanyok, MS
On November 13, 2012, Lauren Hanyok successfully defended her thesis “Methods for calculating motion induced interruptions as applied to a space capsule after splashdown.” How’s that for the intersection of aerospace and ocean engineering! Congratulations Lauren!
Qing Yang, PhD
Congratulations Dr. Qing Yang who successfully defended his PhD thesis in December, 2011! You can peruse Qing’s thesis here: SPH Simulation of Fluid-Structure Interaction Problems with Application to Hovercraft. For more on Qing’s various publications, click on the tag ‘Yang‘ on this site.
Wan Wu, PhD
Congratulations to Wan Wu on successfully defending her PhD! Read it here: Analytical and Numerical Methods Applied to Nonlinear Vessel Dynamics and Code Verification for Chaotic Systems. For more on Wan’s work, click on the tag ‘Wu‘ on this site.
Rob Story, MS
W. Robert Story, MS thesis “Application of Lyapunov Exponents to Strange Attractors and Intact & Damaged Ship Stability,” successfully defended April 29, 2009. Recipient of the Conference of Southern Graduate Schools’ ETD Master’s Thesis Award in the “Innovative Application of Technology to Scholarship in a Master’s Thesis” category. For more on Rob’s work, click on the tag ‘Story‘ on this site.
David Grant, MS
David Grant, MS thesis “Full Scale Investigation of Bilge Keel Effectiveness at Forward Speed,” successfully defended April 28, 2008. For more on David’s work, click on the tag ‘Grant‘ on this site.
Michael Venturella, MS
Lt. Michael Venturella, MS thesis “Modal Analysis of the Ice-Structure Interaction Problem,” successfully defended April 15, 2008 (co-advised with Mayuresh Patil). For more on Michael’s work, click on the tag ‘Venturella‘ on this site.
Brook Sherman, MS
Lt. Brook Sherman, MS thesis “The Examination and Evaluation of Dynamic Ship Quiescence Prediction and Detection Methods for Application in the Ship-Helicopter Dynamic Interface,” successfully defended April 16, 2007. For more on Brook’s work, click on the tag ‘Sherman‘ on this site.