Prof. Ryan Harne recipient of the ASME Gary Anderson Early Achievement Award

ASME member Ryan L. Harne, Ph.D., assistant professor in the department of mechanical and aerospace engineering at Ohio State University, and recent Ohio State graduate Danielle T. Lynd, were named the winners of the 2017 Best Paper Award in Structures and Structural Dynamics. The award was presented to Dr. Harne on Sept. 19 during the ASME Conference on Smart Materials, Adaptive Structures and Intelligent Systems in Snowbird, Utah. The highly regarded award recognizes the best published or presented paper on adaptive structures during the previous calendar year. Harne and Lynd received the award for their paper, “Origami Acoustics: Using Principles of Folding Structural Acoustics for Simple and Large Focusing of Sound Energy,” which was published in the Smart Materials and Structures journal in 2016. The paper explores the novel idea of leveraging the principles of folding and deployable structures for adaptive, acoustic wave guiding devices, according to Harne, who directs the university’s Laboratory of Sound and Vibration Research. One potential medical application for their research would involve collapsible transducers that could be moved throughout the human body and unfolded and activated when they reach a particular area, he said. Harne, who has been a member of ASME since 2011, was awarded the ASME Applied Mechanics Division’s Haythornthwaite Young Investigator Award in 2016. He received three degrees in mechanical engineering from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University: a bachelor’s degree in 2008, a master’s degree in 2009, and a Ph.D. in 2012.