Instructor
MechSE Teaching Fellow Mechanical Design II (ME 371) | Fall 2011 | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Instructing TA ME 371 | Spring 2011 | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
For each of these two semesters I was (will be for fall) the sole instructor for one lecture/discussion section of about 35 undergraduate students. Topics taught were stress/strain, failure modes, fracture, impact, fatigue, crack growth, surface wear, and component analysis/design (screws, springs, lubrication/bearings, gears, clutches/brakes, shafts, and miscellaneous components). The course had heavy focus on team work and group design projects (both paper projects and built projects). I was also tasked with managing a homework/quiz grader and computer laboratory TA, and creating homework assignments, weekly quizzes, project descriptions/grading, and final exam creation/grading.
The opportunity to teach this course has afforded me the great luxury of not only being able to start my teaching experience early, but has shown me that I truly love to teach. My aim is to stay in academia with focus on helping students learn these topics, as well as topics related to my research on nonlinear dynamical systems and biomechanics.
Borrowing from the campus course catalog, ME 371 involves:
Design and analysis of machinery for load-bearing and power transmission. Consideration of material failure modes, including yielding, fracture, fatigue, and creep. Design and selection of machine elements: bolts, springs, rolling-element bearings, fluid-film lubrication, and power transmissions, including gears and friction drives.
This course is the second of the two Mechanical Engineering core 'design' courses, where students utilize classroom learning of the above topics through CAE assignments and design projects.
Teaching Assistant
Whole-body Musculoskeletal Biomechanics (ME 481) | Fall 2010 | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
This course, developed and taught by my co-advisor Elizabeth T. Hsiao-Wecksler, focuses on modeling and analysis of the musculoskeletal system as a whole, with focus and application to human gait and balance. My specific duties were to assist the instructor with homework, quiz, project, and exam preparation, grading all homework, and assisting in project grading. I also performed several lectures, and assisted students with their homework and project inquiries.
Borrowing from the campus course catalog, ME 481 involves:
Exploration of the human musculoskeletal system with an emphasis on the whole-body or organism level; modeling and analysis techniques for examining human movement, such as rigid-body modeling techniques, forward and inverse dynamics, and Lagrangian mechanics; examination of current topics, such as orthopedic biomechanics, prosthetics and orthotics, postural control, and locomotion; use of computerized motion-capture equipment and software to examine, simulate, and analyze human movement.
Mechanical Design II (ME 371) | Fall 2006, Spring 2007 | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
My specific responsibility was to lead the CAE computer sessions. The students used ANSYS software to analyze the stresses in various components and materials. I helped create the assignment instructions, was available to assist students during class and in office hours, and handled all ANSYS assignment grading. I also assisted students with questions about homework or exams, wrote an exam question, advised students on design projects, and assisted in exam and project grading.
For more information on the course itself, see my "Instructor" section above.
Mentoring
I have had the opportunity to mentor three undergraduate summer interns in the HDCL. In 2008 I mentored Nicole Arnold, a Mechanical Engineering student from Michigan State University. She studied gait ground reaction force changes throughout injury recovery. In 2009, I mentored two undergraduates from Illinois' MechSE department, David Austin and Federico Scholcoff. They developed a native MATLAB database software so that researchers in the HDCL can easily access any other researcher's data, and data can be easily prepared to send to others outside the HDCL. I continued to mentor Dave and Fred throughout the 2009-2010 academic year.