Purdue Mechanical Engineering Graduate Seminar hosts:
*Coupling Insights into Emerging Markets with Engineering Science to Create
High-Performance, Low-Cost, Global Technologies*
*Dr. Amos Winter*
Ratan N. Tata Career Development Associate Professor
Director, Global Engineering and Research (GEAR) Laboratory
Department of Mechanical Engineering
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
*Thursday November 15, 2018*
*4:30pm, WALC 1055 (Hiler Theatre)*
Abstract: The MIT Global Engineering and Research (GEAR) Lab characterizes
the unique technical and socioeconomic constraints of emerging markets,
then combines these insights with engineering science and product design to
create high-performance, low-cost, globally-relevant technologies. This
approach has catalyzed three primary technological and research
contributions, which will be the focus of this talk: a method for tuning
the constitutive behavior of low-cost, passive prosthetic legs to induce
near able-bodied biomechanics; characterizing the coupled solid and fluid
me-chanics of drip irrigation systems to design devices that require
one-half the pumping power as conventional technology and lower the capital
cost of off-grid systems by up to 40%; and co-optimization of electro
dialysis (ED) desalination and photovoltaic (PV) power systems that are 40%
less expensive than current technology, and ED stack designs which cut
capital cost by 5X through parametric optimization and active voltage
control. In addition to advancing the science and design knowledge in these
areas, all three projects have manifested in new engineering hardware and
field tests around the world with target stakeholders. Furthermore, by
providing high-value, low-cost solutions, each project has become a
“reverse innovation”, with variants of the technology now transferring to
wealthier, global markets. This talk will demonstrate how rigorous
engineering theory combined with insights on emerging market constraints
can yield high-value solutions relevant to poor and rich countries alike.
Bio: Amos Winter is the Ratan N. Tata Career Development Associate
Professor of Mechanical Engineering at MIT. His research focuses on machine
and product design for developing and emerging markets. Prof. Winter earned
a BS from Tufts University (2003) and an MS (2005) and PhD (2011) from MIT,
all in mechanical engineering. He received the 2010 Tufts University Young
Alumni Distinguished Achievement Award, the 2012 ASME/Pi Tau Sigma Gold
Medal, was named one of the MIT Technology Review’s 35 Innovators Under 35
(TR35) for 2013, and received the MIT Edgerton Faculty Achievement Award
and an NSF CAREER award in 2017. In 2018 he joined the first cohort of the
National Academies New Voices in Sciences, Engineering and Medicine
program. Prof. Winter is also the principal inventor of the Leveraged
Freedom Chair (LFC) developing world wheelchair, which was a winner of a
2010 R&D 100 award, was named one of the Wall Street Journal’s top
innovations in 2011, received a Patents for Humanity award from the U.S.
Patent and Trademark Office in 2015, and was the subject of “Engineering
Reverse Innovations”, winner of the 2015 McKinsey Award for the best
article of the year in Harvard Business Review
