He received his Ph.D. from Michigan State University in Mechanical Engineering in 1980 and is the Harm Buning Collegiate Professor and former Chair of the Department of Aerospace Engineering at the University of Michigan. Since 1980, he has published eight books (on vibration, energy harvesting, control, statics, and dynamics), eight software manuals, 20 book chapters, over 425 journal papers and 690 proceedings papers, given 79 keynote or plenary lectures, graduated 71 Ph.D. students, and supervised more than 75 MS degrees.  He works in the areas of applying smart materials and structures to solve aerospace engineering problems including energy harvesting, structural health monitoring, vibration suppression and morphing aircraft.  He is a Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, American Society of Mechanical Engineers, International Instituted for Acoustics and Vibrations, Society of Experimental Mechanics and American Academy of Mechanics. He holds the 2000 ASME Adaptive Structures Award, the 2003 SPIE Smart Structures and Materials Lifetime Achievement Award, the ASME Den Hartog Award for lifetime achievement in teaching and research in vibration, the 2009 Lifetime Achievement award in Structural Health Monitoring, and the 2014 AIAA Structures, Structural Dynamics, and Materials Award. He served as the Editor-in-Chief  of the Journal of Intelligent Material Systems and Structures (1999-2024) and the Journal of Vibration and Acoustics (1989-1999).

Greta Colford is a PhD student in the Mechanical Engineering Department, co-advised by Dr. Inman and Dr. Kon-Well Wang. She graduated with a BS in Mechanical Engineering and minor in Aerospace Engineering from Michigan Technological University in 2018, and before starting graduate school, she worked as a Post-Baccalaureate Engineer at Los Alamos National Laboratory. Her research interests include structural dynamics and acoustic/elastic wave propagation.

Yan Borden is a PhD candidate in the Aerospace Engineering department. He received his B.S. in Engineering Mechanics from the University of Wisconsin – Madison in 2021 and his M.S.E. in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Michigan – Ann Arbor in 2023. In the summer of 2025 he completed an internship at Amazon’s autonomous robotaxi company, Zoox, on the System Design and Mission Assurance team.

Fernando Dapino is a PhD candidate in the Aerospace Engineering Department. His research interests include composite materials, piezoelectric actuators and sensors, and morphing structures. Fernando holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Mechanical Engineering from Purdue University.

Shivani Sunil is a Ph.D. student in the Aerospace Engineering Department at the University of Michigan, advised by Dr. Daniel Inman. She received her B.Tech. (Honors) in Mechanical Engineering with a minor in Machine Design from Manipal Institute of Technology, India (2024), and her M.S. in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Michigan (2026). Her research interests include space structures, small-satellite systems engineering, metastructures, vibration characteristics and flow control in aerospace applications.