 |
Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering Miao Yu was recently granted the Ralph E. Powe Junior Faculty Enhancement Award. Yu is one of only two Maryland faculty nominated by the University to earn this award.
The Oak Ridge Associated Universities (ORAU) consortium annually grants the $5,000 Powe Award to recipients, which will be matched by the department. The funds are given to full-time assistant professors at ORAU member institutions within the first two years of their initial tenure track appointment at time of application.
Yu plans to use the funds to support her research on biology-inspired miniature fiber-optic directional microphones for sound localization. Her research is inspired by the ear mechanism of the acoustic parasitoid fly (Ormia ochracea), that possesses a tiny hearing organ for directional sensing. The hearing organ uniquely utilizes a form of mechanical coupling between its eardrums to accurately detect and localize the direction of a sound source despite such a small size. Yu's research explores the transfer of the biological intertympanal coupling mechanism to miniature optical sensor technology, and strives to develop a low coherence interferometer-based directional microphone system for high performance sound localization.
Congratulations to Professor Yu for the award and unique research efforts.
April 15, 2006
|
