It’s been eight months since Minami Yoda assumed an academic leadership role at the Michigan State University Department of Mechanical Engineering (ME).
Along with being chairperson of the oldest and one of the largest departments in the College of Engineering, Yoda is a Red Cedar Distinguished Professor. Her research is in experimental fluid mechanics and optical diagnostics, with applications in fusion energy, flow boiling heat transfer, microfluidics, and super-resolution imaging.
She came to MSU in November 2023 from the Georgia Institute of Technology, where she was a Ring Family Professor in the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering.
Yoda is former chair of the American Physical Society (APS) Division of Fluid Dynamics and former chair of the American Nuclear Society Fusion Energy Division. She became a Fellow of the APS in 2012 and the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) in 2008, and is an editor of the journal Fluid Dynamics Research.
Minami Yoda was an undergraduate at Caltech and did her graduate studies at Stanford University. After receiving her Ph.D. in Aeronautics and Astronautics, she was a von Humboldt Foundation and NSF Postdoctoral Fellow at the Technical University of Berlin in Germany. She has been a visiting researcher at the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands and the Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology in Japan.
What attracted you to the leadership role in MSU’s ME department?
The opportunity to work with a department that was the right size - neither too big, nor too small - with a collegial and supportive culture. And the chance to return to the Great Lakes region and an older Big Ten school, after growing up in Madison, Wisconsin.
What are your priorities during this first year as chair of the department?
My priorities are to: 1) learn everything I can about the department and MSU; 2) recruit new faculty; and 3) rebuild the undergraduate and graduate student organizations after the pandemic.
What types of careers are mechanical engineering students pursuing once they graduate?
It depends to some extent on whether they get an undergraduate or graduate degree, but many go to manufacturing, automotive, and power technology companies. Even the “traditional” players - Ford, General Motors, Caterpillar, Cummins, GE Power Systems for example - are re-engineering to compete with the new players such as Tesla. Many mechanical engineering graduates are also working in the tech sector, as well as the life sciences and medical device industry.
What do you think is most exciting about working as a mechanical engineer?
The sheer breadth of problems that you can work on, and the impact that you can have, with a mechanical engineering background!
College of Engineering Media and Public Relations page