Hilary
Bart-Smith hopes one day to create vehicles that move so
gracefully through the air and water they may be mistaken
for living creatures.
Science fiction?
Not for Bart-Smith, who has made this seemingly far-fetched
idea her life's work — work that now has garnered the
recognition needed to power her research.
Last fall, the U.Va. assistant professor of mechanical
and aerospace engineering heard that she had won a prestigious
Packard Fellowship for Science and Engineering from the
David and Lucile Packard Foundation. Over the winter, she
earned a National Science Foundation CAREER Award, and just
this summer, she received an invitation to the selective
U.S. Frontiers of Engineering Symposium, sponsored by the
National Academy of Engineering.
“These honors highlight how creative and even revolutionary
Hilary’s work is,” said R. Ariel Gomez, vice president
for research and graduate studies. “It is gratifying
to see national recognition of our talented engineering
faculty.”
A native of Scotland, Bart-Smith has been interested in
engineering since high school. At 16, she participated in
a math and physics program for women. As part of that program,
she visited a British Aerospace factory and was introduced
to engineering as a career.
“That experience led to a fascination with understanding
how things around me function,” she said. “I’m
the only woman I know who saw the movie ‘Titanic’
and was gaga not over Leonardo DiCaprio, but over the boiler
room.”
Bart-Smith, 30, completed her undergraduate studies at
the University of Glasgow, graduating first in her class
in mechanical engineering, and received her doctorate from
Harvard University in 2000. She completed a two-year post-doc
at Princeton University where she worked on ultra-light
materials (metallic foams), before joining the University
of Virginia faculty in 2002. Her research interests include
multifunctional materials, such as ultra-light materials,
morphing structures, and electro-active polymers.
It's the morphing structures, in particular, that fuel
the imagination. For now they exist only in the laboratory,
but some day, Bart-Smith expects to see morphing wings moving
submarines silently through the ocean like manta rays.
“Mother Nature has had the advantage of millennia
to design the most efficient structures and systems,”
she said. “Design engineers and material scientists
have a lot of catching up to do.” Using new materials
and techniques, Bart-Smith is borrowing from nature to create
the vehicles of the future.
The Packard grant gives Bart-Smith $625,000 over five years
to pursue her research. The NSF grant provides a similar
level of funding.
“I'm very honored to be given this opportunity,”
she said, “but it's a huge responsibility. At the end
of the five years, I hope to be able to present my sponsors
with models of the first generation of bio-mimetic, underwater
vehicles,” vehicles that mimic the movements of a living
organism.
She believes the interdisciplinary nature of her work appealed
to the Packard and National Science foundations and expects
to collaborate with a number of colleagues in U.Va.’s
School of Engineering and Applied Science, including: Ted
Iwasaki, professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering,
who will work on controls; Pepe Humphrey, Wade Professor
and chairman of the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace
Engineering, who is investigating the mechanics of insect
flight, especially flapping; and Haydn Wadley, University
Professor and Edgar Starke Research Professor of Materials
Science and Engineering, who is working on new metallic
structures that offer various combinations of attributes,
such as strength, weight, and blast or impact absorption.
After completing her manta ray-submarine project, Bart-Smith
has loftier ambitions — applying morphing structures
to airplanes. An airfoil that could change its shape in-flight
would reduce drag and increase maneuverability.
In her career, Bart-Smith has chosen to navigate between
what nature has done, what mankind is doing now and what,
with a little math and a lot of creativity, just might be
done in the years ahead. Her journey may not always be free
of turbulence, but it should be an interesting ride
