1. Home
  2. News
  3. Engineering in Photos: Winter 2025-2026
College of Engineering

Engineering in Photos: Winter 2025-2026

Engineering in Photos captures the energy, creativity, and everyday moments that define our College. Highlights from the Winter 2025–2026 collection (December 2025–January 2026) include a student-built Dobsonian telescope, the construction of autonomous hospital medication assistants, and the creation of light-up Christmas cards for local nursing home residents. Faculty and research teams explored far beyond Notre Dame’s campus, pursuing fieldwork under the Arctic polar night. Together, these images highlight a winter defined by collaboration, creativity, and the drive to explore what’s possible.

WomEEn (Women in Electrical Engineering) Make Christmas Cards

Close-up of a handmade “Merry Christmas” card featuring a reindeer with a red LED nose, next to trays of colorful LED lights.
A student seated at a classroom table, drawing a holiday card, with crayons, tape, and a phone nearby.
Student smiling and holding a light-up reindeer Christmas card with a glowing red LED nose.
Two students smiling and holding up handmade holiday cards at a classroom table with crayons and craft supplies.
Students seated at classroom tables focused on drawing and assembling holiday cards.

WomEEn (Women in Electrical Engineering) hosted a festive gathering open to all EE students, featuring Christmas cookies and hot cocoa. Attendees spent the afternoon creating light-up Christmas cards to share with residents of a local nursing home, spreading holiday cheer beyond campus.

TIME Lab Group Photo

Group photo of TIME Lab members standing and kneeling in front of a decorated Christmas tree in a campus building lobby, all wearing navy TIME Lab T-shirts.

Members of the TIME Lab gathered together to take a seasonal group photo. Led by Meenal Datta, the Jane Schoelch DeFlorio Collegiate Professor of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering, the TIME Lab studies how biological, chemical, electrical, and physical abnormalities in the tumor microenvironment—including altered tissue mechanics—drive cancer progression and treatment resistance. Using engineering approaches, the lab identifies clinically translatable biophysical targets—on earth and beyond.

Learn more about the TIME Lab

Shedding Light on Ice Fog in the Darkness of Polar Night

The Vaisala FD70 sensor, a piece of equipment used by researchers in northern Alaska, is decorated with white string lights, red beaded garland, and red Christmas ornaments.
A researcher works on some wiring indoors.
Ice fog is shown over the research center in Utqiagvik, Alaska.
A thermometer covered in ice shows the temperature around zero degrees Fahrenheit.
Two researchers work on a piece of equipment outside. Snow is seen in the background.
A polar bear stands on the snowy ground.
A birds-eye view of open land around the Fatima Ice Fog project research center.

A team of Notre Dame Engineers from the Fatima-IF (Fog and Turbulence Interactions in Marine Atmosphere Ice Fog) project, led by Harindra Joseph Fernando, the Wayne and Diana Murdy Endowed Professor of Engineering and Geosciences at the University of Notre Dame, traveled to Utqiaġvik, Alaska, to study ice fog, conducting fieldwork and collecting data in extreme Arctic conditions. Their research took place during the polar night, when weeks of darkness set the backdrop for long days of instrument setup and monitoring. Even in the cold, the team added a seasonal touch, decorating their equipment for holiday photos — and had a few Arctic visitors, including foxes and a curious polar bear, pass through the area.

(Photos courtesy of Matthis Chabert D’Hières, Marilyn Dunbar, and Harindra Joseph Fernando.)

Learn How Notre Dame Engineers Are Shedding Light on Ice Fog

Notre Dame Students Design and Build Their Own Dobsonian Telescope

From left, João Pedro Ferreira Gil, Professor Paul Rumbach, and Peter Verges stand indoors behind the 10-inch Dobsonian telescope they designed and built.
Close-up of a shamrock-shaped cutout detail on the side of the telescope.
View through the telescope’s open tube showing the interior mirror and structural supports.
Close-up of a campus-inspired skyline cutout incorporated into the telescope structure.
Student looking through the telescope outdoors at night while another stands nearby.

University of Notre Dame students Peter Verges, a junior majoring in aerospace engineering, and João Pedro Ferreira Gil, a sophomore majoring in applied and computational mathematics and statistics, designed and built their own 10-inch Dobsonian telescope. From detailed campus-inspired cutouts to testing it under the night sky, the project brought their classroom learning into hands-on focus.

Read how they got closer to the stars

Mechanical Engineering Senior Design Demo

Mechanical Engineering senior design students gathered on a staircase inside Stinson-Remick Hall of Engineering, several holding their project prototypes.
Students in a classroom testing a small wheeled prototype while others observe and record on a phone.
Student examining wiring and internal components inside a partially assembled robotic prototype.
Group of students smiling in a lab space, some wearing and holding wearable prototype devices.
Student kneeling on the floor adjusting a small robotic device while another monitors it from a laptop nearby.
Two students kneeling on the floor assembling and aligning a robotic device.
Students gathered around a table discussing and reviewing two robotic prototypes with exposed wiring and components.

Mechanical Engineering Senior Design students were tasked with developing an autonomous hospital medication assistant that would interact with two different wearable devices: one device that transmitted a signal based on some biomechanical movement when one patient was in pain, and a second device that passively monitored another patient’s temperature and sent a signal when reaching a fever threshold. 

CSE Undergraduate-Developed Chip Launched Aboard HUNITY Satellite

Close-up of a pink printed circuit board featuring a central microchip and labeled electronic components, part of a device developed by Matthew Morrison’s undergraduate team and launched aboard a HUNITY satellite.

A chip developed by the undergraduate team of Matthew Morrison, associate teaching professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, was launched into orbit aboard a HUNITY PocketQUBE MRC-100 satellite on a recent SpaceX Falcon 9 mission. Still circling Earth every 90 minutes, the HUNITY satellite is up there right now — and you can track its location as it makes each pass around the globe.

COSE Research Horizons Symposium Poster Session

Overhead view of attendees walking among research posters displayed in an atrium during the COSE Research Horizons Symposium.
Presenter gesturing toward charts and figures on a research poster while speaking with an attendee.
Presenter discussing research findings with a small group gathered around a poster display.
Presenter gesturing toward figures on a research poster while explaining the work to an attendee.
A person presenting a research poster and pointing to a bar graph while an attendee listens.
Researcher pointing to data on a poster while explaining results to an attendee.
Two presenters standing beside a research poster, reviewing figures and discussing the displayed results.

Faculty, postdocs, and graduate students gathered for the Colleges of Science and Engineering’s COSE Research Horizons Symposium, presenting their work during the COSE Poster Session. Throughout the day, presenters answered questions and exchanged ideas across disciplines. The event showcased the depth and impact of research across the Colleges and reflected the strength of scholarship on display.

Professional Headshots

Camera set up in a studio space capturing a professional headshot, with a participant seated in front of a backdrop and visible on the camera’s display screen.

Students from the Mechanical Engineering Careers Course, along with members of the Notre Dame Engineering staff and faculty, stopped by our office for professional headshots. Our photographer was set up and ready in our studio office, creating a welcoming space for participants to step in front of the camera. This behind-the-scenes look captured the setup that helped bring everyone into focus.

Notre Dame Spring Career Fair

Overhead view of students and employers talking at booths during the Notre Dame Spring Career Fair.
Student speaking with a recruiter while holding a folder in a crowded career fair hall.
Employer and student engaged in conversation at a booth while other attendees network in the background.
Recruiter and student talking beside a company booth display.
Recruiter smiling while speaking with a student at a table displaying informational materials.

The Notre Dame Spring Career Fair provided engineering students the opportunity to engage with employers across industries and explore career pathways. Throughout the event, students connected with recruiters, learned about opportunities, and gained insight into a wide range of professional fields.

This photo collection was produced by the Notre Dame Engineering Communications and Marketing team. Photos by Wes Evard, Notre Dame Engineering unless otherwise credited.