Mechanical Engineering at Rice University

7 faculty and 24 courses in Mechanical Engineering at Rice University.

Faculty

• B.J. Fregly, Trustee Professor; CPRIT Scholar h-index 51
• Marcia O'Malley, Chair, Department of Mechanical Engineering; Thomas Michael Panos Family Professor in Mechanical Engineering h-index 45
  Marcia O’Malley’s research addresses issues that arise when humans physically interact with robotic systems. Her expertise includes the design and control of exoskeletons and haptic interfaces, and quantifying the effect of device design on human haptic percep
  Notable: “A decade retrospective of medical robotics research from 2010 to 2020” (2021) · 484 citations
• Raudel Avila, Assistant Professor h-index 36
  Notable: “Skin-interfaced biosensors for advanced wireless physiological monitoring in neonatal and pediatric intensive-care units” (2020) · 468 citations
• Yildiz Bayazitoglu, Harry S. Cameron Chair Professor in Mechanical Engineering h-index 26
• Fathi H. Ghorbel, Professor; Ken Kennedy Institute Member h-index 25
  Notable: “A human cardiopulmonary system model applied to the analysis of the Valsalva maneuver” (2001) · 215 citations
• John E. Akin, Professor Emeritus h-index 21
  Notable: “Numerical Solution for Response of Beams with Moving Mass” (1989) · 224 citations
• Keya Ghonasgi, Assistant Professor; Ken Kennedy Institute Member

Courses

• Classical Thermodynamics MECH 200
• Mechanics/Statics MECH 202
• Mechanical Engineering Design Tools MECH 203
• Introduction to Numerical Methods MECH 210
• Engineering Mechanics MECH 211
• Rigid Body Dynamics MECH 310
• Mechanics of Solids and Structures MECH 311
• Stress Analysis MECH 315
• Modeling of Dynamic Systems - Lecture MECH 341
• Mechanical Elements MECH 350
• Fluid Mechanics I MECH 371
• Acoustics MECH 373
• Advanced Mechanics of Materials MECH 400
• Mechanical Design Applications MECH 401
• Computer Aided Design MECH 403
• Capstone Design Project I MECH 407
• Capstone Design Project II MECH 408
• Dynamics and Control of Mechanical Systems MECH 411
• Vibrations MECH 412
• Finite Element Analysis MECH 417
• Fundamentals of Control Systems MECH 420
• Physics Guided Machine Learning & Data Driven Modeling FEM MECH 427
• Tribomechadynamics MECH 430
• Algorithmic and AI-Driven Robotics MECH 450

Roster/catalog compiled from the college’s public directory. Faculty counts are directory headcounts; the named list may be a subset. h-index shown only for ORCID-backed or high-confidence OpenAlex matches. Data as of 2026-07-02.