Page 17: of Marine Technology Magazine (November 2021)

Irine Neba Mforsoh performing an experiment in Professor Arun

Shukla’s Dynamic Photomechanics

Laboratory at URI.

Photos courtesy of Irine Neba Mforsoh ter’s platform and payload integration department.

Irine Neba Mforsoh after the “When presented with a problem of interest to the Navy, 2021 commencement ceremony for

Irine designed experiments that would produce the results we were interested in,” said LeBlanc. “Her testing was always graduate students at URI.

well thought out and executed with attention to detail.”

Besides her doctoral studies, which culminated with her dis- sertation, Neba Mforsoh has engaged with and impressed the

Navy on several other occasions.

Blazing a Trail

Neba Mforsoh was accepted into the prestigious Naval Re-

Shukla has mentored 105 graduate students at URI (30 of search Enterprise Internship Program in 2020. When the 10- whom were doctoral students). According to the professor, week program was canceled due to COVID-19, the Naval Un- dersea Warfare Center enabled her to do an internship at its Neba Mforsoh was the ? rst female African American me- chanical engineering doctoral student at URI. She ? nished her facility in Newport during the summer of 2020.

doctoral courses with a perfect 4.0 grade point average. “I worked on the adhesion behavior of polymers/metal-

As an engineer at the Naval Undersea Warfare Center, Neba lic interfaces, material characterization, data analysis on the fracture behavior of saturated carbon/epoxy and glass/epoxy Mforsoh is contributing to the Navy’s research on coatings and additive manufacturing. composites when subjected to low temperatures, battery test- “Irine has such a wealth of knowledge that she is able to work ing and I assisted in marine mammal impact research,” said in many different technical areas at NUWC,” said LeBlanc. “As

Neba Mforsoh.

an intern, she supported projects in material science, chemis-

Later in the year, Neba Mforsoh was informed that she could try, and power/energy. More importantly, she is able to interact do a virtual version of the Naval Research Enterprise Intern- ship Program, which she did in November to December 2020 with senior researchers in a professional manner and has a con- tinual desire to learn and grow as a NUWC employee.” for the Naval Surface Warfare Center, Philadelphia Division.

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