Sara McMains, assistant professor of Mechanical Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley, has received a Hellman Family Faculty Fund Award for her research project, Real-time Design for Manufacturability Feedback.

Established by F. Warren Hellman in 1995, the purpose of the Hellman Family Faculty Fund is to support substantially the research of promising assistant professors who show capacity for great distinction in their research.

The quality of the research proposed is the most important criterion for selection. Awards are made without regard to the apparent timeliness or popularity of the field of study and without reference to ethnicity or gender; preference may be given to research not supported substantially by other sources and to faculty who have not previously received an award from the Fund. Mr. Hellman has observed that junior faculty are often well-funded when first hired. Problems arise in 2-3 years when start-up funding is exhausted and before first grants are obtained. The Fund is designed to assist promising young faculty at this point in their careers. Therefore, to be eligible for an award, assistant professors will normally be expected to have served at least two years at that rank.

Professor McMains is interested in geometric design for manufacturing feedback and solid modeling, CAD/CAM/CAPP, layered manufacturing, computer aided process planning, computer graphics and visualization, virtual prototyping, and virtual reality.