STRETCH LAB
updates Archive
July 10, 2018
Congrats to Zachary Miller. He was a finalist in the American Society of Mechanical Engineers Bioengineering Division MS level Student Paper Competition at the World Congress of Biomechanics, July 8-12, 2018, Dublin, Ireland.
April 27, 2018
Congrats to Alyssa Huntington for winning the 1st place presentation award at the VT/VTCRI 2nd Annual Muscle Symposium.
April 24, 2018
Congrats to Alyssa Huntington for receiving the Liviu Librescu Memorial Fellowship.
April 13, 2018
Congrats to Alyssa Huntington for successfully defending her M.S. thesis. Alyssa will continue to work in our lab as a Ph.D. student.
May 22, 2018
Congrats to Adwoa Baah-Dwomoh for being inducted into the Edward A. Bouchet Graduate Honor Society and for being named the Black Female Graduate Student of the Year. She has been selected to be the Student Marshall for the Spring 2018 Commencement Ceremony. Way to go, Adwoa!
January 25, 2018
Congrats to Adwoa Baah-Dwomoh for successfully defending her Ph.D. dissertation.
August 30, 2017
Dr. De Vita presented her research as an invited speaker at the INdAM Workshop on Mathematical Physics of Living System, Cortona, Italy.
May 3, 2017
Dr. De Vita was awarded the College of Engineering Dean’s Award for Teaching.
May 2, 2017
Congratulations to Alyssa Huntington for being one of the finalists of the very prestigious Torgersen Graduate Research Award. She won the second place. Well done!!!
April 27, 2017
Congratulations to Roshelle Wijeratne for successfully defending her M.S. thesis.
April 23, 2017
Dr. De Vita and her collaborator, Dr. Alex Leonessa, were awarded the Alumni Award for Outreach Excellence at Virginia Tech.
April 23, 2017
Dr. De Vita and her collaborator, Dr. Alex Leonessa, were awarded the Alumni Award for Outreach Excellence at Virginia Tech.
January 17, 2017
Welcome to Dr. Emanuele Rizzuto, a visiting scholar from La Sapienza University, Rome, Italy.
November 17, 2016
Congratulations to Roshelle Wijeratne for receiving the John Dillard Travel Award to attend the 40th Annual Adhesion Society Meeting in St. Petersburg, Florida.
October 17, 2016
Read about our collaboration with the Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine. Check out the video with our senior design team and our lab member, Alyssa Huntington.
July 13, 2016
Joe Rittenhouse very successfully defended his M.S. thesis. Congratulations!!!
June 1-30, 2016
R. De Vita spent one month at the University of Rome, La Sapienza, as a visiting professor.
April 19, 2016
Congratulations to Joe Rittenhouse for being one of the finalists for the Torgersen Graduate Research Award. He won the second place.
March 17, 2016
Alyssa Huntington, an ESM BS/MS student working in our lab, was awarded the James F. Powell fellowship. Congratulations!!!!
January 7, 2016
Our paper, "Quantification of Strain Induced Damage in Medial Collateral Ligaments," published in the Journal of Biomechanical Engineering (JBME) 137:071011, was selected as one of our Editors' Choice papers for 2015. The editorial board felt that our paper "best exemplified the high quality and significance of work in JBME in 2015."
December 14, 2015
R. De Vita visited and gave a seminar talk in the Department of Mathematics and Physics at the Second University of Naples, Caserta, Italy.
December 11, 2015
R. De Vita received the Premio Progreditur 2015 from the city of Marcianise, Caserta, Italy.
December 3, 2015
R. De Vita visited and gave a seminar talk in the Department of Structural and Geotechnical Engineering at “La Sapienza” University of Rome, Rome, Italy.
November 20, 2015
Our paper, "Structure of Tracheae and the Functional Implications for Collapse in the American Cockroach," published in the Bioinspiration & Biomimetics journal, 10:066011, 2015 was selected as featured article.
November 12, 2015
Congratulations to Ting Tan for successfully defending her PhD dissertation.
May 14, 2015
Congratulations to Ting Tan for receiving the 2015 Amir Chand and Dewki Bai Batra Scholarship. This scholarship is awarded to outstanding Engineering Mechanics doctoral students who have an exemplary portfolio of publications and presentations at various national and international conferences and have mentored undergraduate students through lecturing and laboratory courses.
March 10, 2015
Congratulations to Winston Becker for receiving the 2015 William Preston Society Master's Thesis award in the STEM category.
February 6, 2015
Our paper entitled "Variation in the mechanical properties of tracheal tubes in the American cockroach" has been selected to be in the Highlights of 2014 for the Smart Materials and Structures journal.
December 1, 2014
Congratulations to Matthew Webster for successfully defending his PhD dissertation.
October 4, 2014
R. De Vita receives the 2014 Liviu Librescu Faculty Prize.
September 1, 2014
The ASEE PRISM magazine featured R. De Vita as one of the 20 engineering faculty under 40. Read an extract of the PRISM cover story.
August 27, 2014
Congratulations to Matthew Webster for being awarded the Liviu Librescu Memorial Fellowship. This fellowship recognizes "graduate students who have outstanding academic records and have demonstrated strong leadership potential and commitment to professional or community service."
May 7, 2014
R. De Vita was named College of Engineering Faculty Fellow. She also received the College of Engineering Award for Outreach Excellence.
May 6, 2014
Congratulations to Winston Becker for successfully defending his MS thesis. Wiston is heading to Standford University for a combined MD/PhD program. We are very proud of him!
April 14, 2014
R. De Vita received the 2012 Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers in a ceremony keynoted by OSTP Director John Holdren at the U.S. Department of Agriculture. She and the other 101 PECASE awardees were then greeted at the White House by President Obama.
December 23, 2013
R. De Vita has been selected to receive the 2012 Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers. "This is the highest honor bestowed by the United States Government on science and engineering professionals in the early stages of their independent research careers."
The official White House press release is available here.
December 17, 2013
Congratulations to Matthew Webster for receiving the Daniel Frederick scholarship. The scholarship is awarded by the ESM department to "an outstanding doctoral student based upon academic record, creativity in research, and performance on doctoral exams."
November 25, 2013
R. De Vita will be an invited speaker at the "Mathematical Analysis of Liquid Crystals" symposium at the SIAM Conference on Analysis of Partial Differential Equations, Orlando, December 6-10, 2013.
September 2, 2013
R. De Vita will be an invited speaker at "The Mathematics of Cells and Tissues" workshop held in Cortona, Italy, September 2-6, 2013.
June 5, 2013
Our research on predicting and treating sprained knee has been highlighted on NSF's SEE innovation website.
May 3, 2013
Congratulations to Albert Kwansa on successfully passing his PhD dissertation defense.
May 2, 2013
Congratulations to Victor Stewart on successfully passing his MS thesis defense.
April 23, 2013
Dr. De Vita received the 2013 Excellence in Access and Inclusion Award with Drs. Alex Leonessa and Susan Asselin and Ms. Andrea Sharpe.
April 3, 2013
Frances Davis received the Whitaker International Post-Doctoral Scholar Grant. "The goal of the program is to assist the development of professional leaders who are not only superb scientists, but who also will advance the profession through an international outlook."
March 29, 2013
Winston Becker received the prestigious NSF Graduate Research Fellowship which "recognizes and supports outstanding graduate students in NSF-supported science, technology, engineering, and mathematics disciplines."
August 27, 2012
R. De Vita was named the Scholar of the Week by the Office of the Vice President for Research.
June 7, 2012
R. De Vita presented her research in the Mathematics Department at the Seconda Universita` degli Studi di Napoli, Caserta, Italy.
April 10, 2012
R. De Vita received the NSF CBET Award Achievement for her research on Unraveling the Mechanisms of Sprains.
March 28, 2012
Winston Becker received the prestigious Berry M. Goldwater Scholarship.
January 16, 2012
September 20, 2011
Congratulations to Matthew Webster for being awarded an NSF travel grant to the 12th Pan American Congress of Applied Mechanics to be held in Port of Spain, Trinidad.
September 15, 2011
Congratulations to Frances Davis for being awarded a travel grant to the 48th Annual Technical Meeting of the Society of Engineering Science to be held in Evanston, Illinois, USA.
September 5, 2011
A featured article from our lab appeared in Smart Materials and Structures 20, 094017. Please point your browser to http://iopscience.iop.org/0964-1726 and click on the "Featured articles" tab.
May 3, 2011
Congratulations to Mr. Zheying Guo on passing his PhD dissertation defense.
December 8, 2010
Congratulations to Ms. Ratchada Sopakayang on passing her PhD dissertation defense.
September 19, 2009
R. De Vita will give a talk in the Mathematics Department at University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, United Kingdom.
August 11, 2009
R. De Vita is a co-PI for the "EFRI BSBA: Complex microsystem networks inspired by internal insect physiology" project funded by NSF.
August 11, 2009
R. De Vita is the PI for the "Micro-Mechanical Characterization of Damage in Ligaments" project funded by the NSF CBET division.
April 10, 2009
Congratulations to Frances Davis for being awarded the 2009 Ford Foundation Diversity Fellowship. The fellowship is sponsored by the Ford Foundation and administered by the National Research Council of the National Academies. It will provide three years of support for Frances to pursue studies leading to an Engineering Mechanics Ph.D. The Ford Foundation awards are made to individuals who have demonstrated superior academic achievement, are committed to a career in teaching and research at the college or university level, show promise of future achievement as scholars and teachers, and are well prepared to use diversity as a resource for enriching the education of all students.
November 15, 2008
R. De Vita and her collaborator, Prof. Iain W. Stewart, are organizing a symposium entitled Mechanics of Liquid Crystalsfor The 2009 Joint ASCE-ASME-SES Conference on Mechanics and Materials, June 24-27, 2009, Blacksburg, VA.