Meng named Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers

by Jane Stoyle Welch

Published September 5, 2018 This content is archived.

Hui Meng, a  professor in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at the University at Buffalo, has been named a Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME). The designation recognizes her outstanding achievements in mechanical engineering.

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"Hui's scientific breakthroughs in bioengineering have significantly impacted patient-specific risk assessment and subsequent interventions to prevent cerebral aneurysms and strokes. Her work has the potential to impact hundreds of thousands of lives."
Kemper Lewis, professor and chair
Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
portrait of Hui Meng.

Hui Meng is a professor in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering.

“By continuing to honor our members by elevating them to the grade of Fellow, we ensure ASME’s commitment to its vision to be the essential resource for mechanical engineers and other technical professionals throughout the world for solutions that benefit humankind. The Fellow grade is truly a distinction among ASME members,” said Phil Hamilton, Interim Executive Director of ASME.

Nominated by ASME members and Fellows, an ASME member has to have 10 or more years of active practice and at least 10 years of active corporate membership in ASME.

"Hui’s cutting-edge research has positioned her as a global leader in the integration of imaging science, computational fluid dynamics, and translational medicine," said Kemper Lewis, professor and chair of the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering. "Her scientific breakthroughs in bioengineering have significantly impacted patient-specific risk assessment and subsequent interventions to prevent cerebral aneurysms and strokes. Her work has the potential to impact hundreds of thousands of lives."

A UB faculty member since 1999, Meng is an internationally renowned expert and leader in two distinct fields: experimental fluid mechanics and cerebral aneurysm and hemodynamics. Originally recruited to UB to join the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, she also was named a research professor in the Department of Neurosurgery in 2004 and an adjunct professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering in 2010 so that she could pursue work that would have a more direct impact on improving human health.

Since then, she has made what colleagues in the biomedical sciences call “significant and profound” contributions in cerebral aneurysm research, in addition to continuing groundbreaking work in her original scholarly field of experimental fluid mechanics and turbulence.

Meng’s work in the biomedical engineering field has provided the foundation for efforts to improve diagnostics, early detection, surgical management and treatment of brain aneurysms, and is credited by colleagues with opening new pathways to improving minimally invasive treatments, such as flow-modification therapies.

She also has leveraged her cross-disciplinary training in optics and mechanical engineering to pioneer the development of volumetric whole-field measurement of turbulent flow using holography, which has significantly advanced our ability to understand, model and control turbulent and other complex flows.

Meng’s research has received more than $19 million in funding from major national organizations, including the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health.

In 2014, Meng was named a Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering for her outstanding contributions to understanding the roles of high wall shear stresses and spatial gradients in vascular pathology.

She is a co-founder of Neurovascular Diagnostics Inc., a startup company that is developing a blood test for detecting unruptured brain aneurysms, an advance that could save lives by enabling doctors to identify and provide preventative treatment to patients who have such aneurysms but exhibit no symptoms.

Among her numerous honors is a UB Exceptional Scholar Award Sustained Achievement Award, which recognizes a researcher’s work that has “garnered public and/or professional accolades beyond the norm,” a SUNY Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Scholarship and Creative Activities, and she was recently named a UB Distinguished Professor by the Office of the Provost.