Lab Members | Research | Vibrations and Robotics Lab at Virginia Tech

Lab Director

Dr. Oumar Barry received his B.Eng. in Engineering in 2008 and his M.A.Sc. in Mechanical Engineering in 2010 from Ryerson University. He received his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Toronto in 2014. He worked as a Design Engineer for Hydro One Inc. from 2008 to 2015. He then went on to become an Assistant Professor at Central Michigan University until 2018 when he joined Virginia Tech as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering. His research interests include structural dynamics, nonlinear vibration, noise and vibration control, self-powered MEMS and NEMS sensors and actuators, energy harvesting, smart composite materials, fluid structure interaction, inspection and damping robots, and assistive robotic exoskeletons. A list of his publications is available here.

Postdoctoral Researchers

Sunit Gupta received his B.Eng from CSVTU Bhilai, India and his PhD from IIT Kanpur in 2018, both in Mechanical Engineering. his current research focuses on the understanding the effect of nonlinear isolators on the vibrations of ultra-precision manufacturing systems (UPM).

Ph.D. Students

Daniel Welcome received his BSME from Purdue University in 1993 and MS in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Iowa in 1996. After further study in BME at Iowa and occupational biomechanics research at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland, he has been researching hand transmitted vibration for the last 20+ years at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. His research at Virginia Tech focuses on finding ways to use nonlinear dynamics to mitigate the vibration from tools.

Ehab Basta received his B.S. and M.S. in Mechanical Engineering from The American University of Sharjah in 2017 and 2019, respectively. His research focuses on Metastructures, Fluid-structure interaction, Nonlinear Dynamics, Perturbation Techniques, and Structural Vibration.

Ranhee Yoon received her B.Eng in Mechanical Engineering from Incheon National University in 2016, and her M.Eng in Railway System Engineering from the Korea Railroad Research Institute(KRRI) campus of the University of Science and Technology in 2019. She researched a hyperloop vehicle and a rail management apparatus for additional two years at the KRRI. Her research interests include robotics, dynamics, and control and design of dynamic robot systems.

Joshua LeGrande received his B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Harding University in 2020. His research interests include linear and non-linear vibrations, topological metamaterials, non-destructive evaluation, energy harvesting, and adaptive reconfigurable metamaterials.

Oreoluwa Alabi received his B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Virginia Tech in 2019. His research focuses on the development of anti-vibration gloves for use in industrial settings.

Ashenafi Mebrat achieved both his B.S. and M.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Addis Ababa Institute of Technology (AAiT) at Addis Ababa University (AAU) in 2017 and 2020, respectively. His academic pursuits center around the fascinating realms of linear and nonlinear vibrations, metamaterials, and energy harvesting.

M.S. Students

Zijian Ding received his B.S. in mechanical engineering from Virginia Tech in 2022. His research interests include tremor suppression exoskeletons.

Sudarsana Jayandan received his B.Tech in Mechanical Engineering from National Institute of Technology, Tiruchirappalli in 2022. His research interests include Multi-Body Dynamical Systems and the development of tremor suppression exoskeletons.

Lauren Hall received her B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Virginia Tech in 2022. Her research focuses on vibration reduction in floating offshore wind semi-submersible platforms.

Mrunal Bhalerao completed her B.Tech in Mechanical Engineering from COEP Technological University, Pune, India in 2018. She worked as a Testing and Validation Engineer at Bajaj Auto Ltd from 2018 to 2021, where she worked on durability testing of two-wheeler components. Currently, she is engaged in the development of a non-linear, fluid induce, vibration energy harvester for potential application in fish telemetry tags. Mrunal aspires to forge a career dedicated to addressing challenges at the nexus of energy, environment and societal needs.

Nipun Nambiar received his B.Tech in Mechanical Engineering from NIT Calicut, India. His research interests include vibration analysis and fracture mechanics.

Subham Swastik Samal received his B.Tech in Mechanical Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology, Madras in 2020. His research interests include robotics, dynamics and control systems.

Daniel Kang received his B.S. in mechanical engineering from Texas Christian University in 2023. His research interests include robotics, dynamics, and control systems.

Undergraduate Students

Active Alumni

Mohammad Bukhari received his B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Jordan University of Science and Technology in 2014, his M.Sc in Engineering from Central Michigan University in 2017, and his Ph.D from Virginia Tech in 2021. He is interested in studying Metamaterials, Energy Harvesting, Linear and Nonlinear Vibrations, Human Structure Interaction, Perturbation Techniques, and Nonlinear Dynamics and Chaos. He is currently an assistant professor at Wayne State University.

Jiamin (Jimmy) Wang received his B.Eng degree in Mechanical Engineering from East China University of Science and Technology in 2015, M.S. Degree in Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering from the University of Missouri - Columbia in 2017, and Ph.D Degree in Mechanical Engineering from Virginia Tech in 2022. His research focuses on the development of a wrist tremor suppression exoskeleton. He is currently employed at MathWorks.

Andrew Choi received his B.S. and M.S. in mechanical engineering from Virginia Tech in 2021 and 2023, respectively. His research interests include robotics and controls in the application of vibration suppression. He is currently employed at Sealed Air Corporation.