Meet the Team
Faculty
Assistant Professor | Department of Mechanical Engineering
Maha Haji, PhD
Prof. Maha Haji joined the University of Michigan in 2025 as an Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering. Prior to that, she was an Assistant Professor of Mechanical, Aerospace, and Systems Engineering at Cornell University. Her lab develops designs for symbiotic offshore systems to sustainably extract resources from the ocean such as power, water, and food, as well as mineral resources key to the progress of clean energy.
Previously, Prof. Haji was an MAE Faculty Fellow at Cornell and a Postdoctoral Associate in the Engineering Systems Laboratory in the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics at MIT where her research focused on utilizing multidisciplinary design optimization to develop a floating platform, known as PEARL, to provide recharging and data offloading capacity for autonomous underwater vehicles.
She received her Ph.D. in Mechanical and Oceanographic Engineering in 2017 from the Joint Program between MIT and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution where she focused on the design and prototyping of a symbiotic system to harvest uranium from seawater. Prof. Haji has worked in industry as an engineering consultant at ATA Engineering, where she used analysis-driven design to solve problems ranging from aircraft and rockets to robotics and rollercoasters. She holds a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering and a B.A. in Applied Mathematics from the University of California, Berkeley.
Meet the Team
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Alaa Ahmed
Post-Doctoral Associate
Mechanical Engineering
Cornell University
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Nate DeGoede
Ph.D. Candidate
Mechanical Engineering
University of Michigan
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Matthew Haefner
Ph.D. Candidate
Systems Engineering
Cornell University
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Kapil Khanal
Ph.D. Candidate
Systems Engineering
Cornell University
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Rebecca McCabe
Ph.D. Candidate
Mechanical Engineering
Cornell University
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Georgia McSwain
Ph.D. Student
Mechanical Engineering
University of Michigan
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Olivia Murphy
Ph.D. Candidate
Mechanical Engineering
Cornell University
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Collin Treacy
Ph.D. Student
Mechanical Engineering
University of Michigan
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Olivia Vitale
Ph.D. Candidate
Aerospace Engineering
Cornell University
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Arron Chang
M.Eng Student
Environmental Engineering
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Ziad Mosalam
M.Eng Student
Mechanical Engineering
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Kunj Nilesh Patel
M.Eng Student
Mechanical Engineering
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Ruochong Zhu
M.Eng Student
Systems Engineering
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Jiarui (Jordan) Yang
Research Assistant
Systems Engineering
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Kirti Bagepalli
Undergraduate Student
Electrical and Computer Engineering
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Hope Best
Undergraduate Student
Computer Science
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Yinghui Bimali
Undergraduate Student
Engineering Physics
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Madison Dietrich
Undergraduate Student
Mechanical Engineering
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Elvin Fu
Undergraduate Student
Mechanical Engineering
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Moho Goswami
Undergraduate Student
Environmental Engineering
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Natalie Ho
Undergraduate Student
Environmental Engineering
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Khai Xin Kuan
Undergraduate Student
Information Science
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Jenny Lee
Undergraduate Student
Electrical and Computer Engineering
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Tina Li
Undergraduate Student
Operations Research and Engineering
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Eliana Olson
Undergraduate Student
Environmental Engineering
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Sara Pagliuco
Undergraduate Student
Mechanical Engineering
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Claire Power
High School Sophomore
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Chloe Reidy
Undergraduate Student
Mechanical Engineering
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Jenna Reiss
Undergraduate Student
Environmental Engineering
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Andrea Reina
Undergraduate Student
Mechanical Engineering
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Aitzaz Munir Shaikh
Undergraduate Student
Computer Science and Mathematical Physics
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Kayoko Thornton
Undergraduate Student
Mechanical Engineering
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Alex Weng
Undergraduate Student
Mechanical Engineering
Alumni
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Noam Werners
Undergraduate Class of 2025
Mechanical Engineering
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Cecily Pokigo
BS ‘24 | MEng ‘25
Mechanical Engineering
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En Lo
Undergraduate Class of 2025
Environmental Engineering
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Michelle Yu
M.Eng Student
Mechanical Engineering
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Patrick O’Connor
M.Eng 2025
Mechanical Engineering
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Heisen Kong
M.Eng 2025
Systems Engineering
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Aisha Brundan
Undergraduate Class of 2025
Mechanical Engineering
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Ruiyang Jiang
M.Eng Student
Electrical and Computer Engineering
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Keya Gillenwater
Undergraduate Student
Electrical and Computer Engineering
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Loren Weiner
M.Eng Student
Mechanical Engineering
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Zhiyu (Iris) Ren
Undergraduate Student
Environmental Engineering
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Eduardo Barajas
Undergraduate Student
Mechanical Engineering
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Leah Buccino
MEng Student
Mechanical Engineering
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Kaixin (Ezio) Shen
MEng Student
Civil Engineering
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Ana Sofia Alonso Munera
Senior Undergrad and M.Eng
Mechanical Engineering
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Kelvin Resch
Undergraduate Student
Electrical and Computer Engineering
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Ehina Srivastava
MEng Student
Mechanical Engineering
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Mary Conlan
Undergraduate Student
Mechanical Engineering
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Benjamin Choe
Undergraduate Student
Electrical and Computer Engineering
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Kavya Mittha
Class of 2026 Undergraduate Student
Mechanical Engineering
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Nathan Rahklin? Rakhlin?
Class of 2025 Undergraduate Student
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Arezoo Hasankhani
Mechanical Engineering
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Gabriel Ewig
Class of 2024 Undergraduate Student
Mechanical Engineering
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Lalit Mistry
Visiting Undergraduate Student
Mechanical & Electrical Engineering
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Isabel Mejía-Roberts
Undergraduate Student
Mechanical Engineering
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Remy Vearil
Class of 2026 Undergraduate Student
Mechanical Engineering
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Junyi Jiang
Class of 2023 M.Eng.
Material Science and Engineering
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Vidhi Srivastava
Undergraduate Student
Electrical and Computer Engineering
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Annie Stewart
Class of 2025 Undergraduate Student
Environmental Engineering
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Anjana Asok
Class of 2022 M.Eng.
Computer Science
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Mirelys Carcana Barbosa
Undergraduate Student
Engineering Physics
University of California, Berkeley
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Ryan Cheng
Class of 2022 M.Eng. Student
Systems Engineering
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Jinzhou (Kane) Li
MEng Student
Systems Engineering
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Mumtaziah Faaz
Class of 2021 M.Eng.
Material Science and Engineering
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Wen-Jung “Joanna” Chien
Class of 2023 M.Eng.
Material Science and Engineering
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Owais Khalid
Class of 2022 M.Eng. Student
Chemical Engineering
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Catherine Millwater
Undergraduate Student
University of Central Florida
Physics
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Alex Niemi
Undergraduate Student
Minnesota State University Moorhead
Physics
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Brandon Feraud-Solorzano
Class of 2025 Undergraduate Student
Mechanical Engineering
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Ray Weng
Class of 2022 M.Eng. Student
Computer Science
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Paul Young
Class of 2023 Undergraduate Student
Mechanical Engineering