Faculty Focus: Samah Ben Ayed, College of Engineering

Faculty Focus: Samah Ben Ayed, College of Engineering
Mechanical Engineering Technology Associate Professor Samah Ben Ayed joined the NMSU faculty in 2015 after she earned her Ph.D. in engineering mechanics and conducted postdoctoral research at Virginia Tech.
“Being a professor at NMSU gives me an outstanding opportunity to work in a rich and diverse community,” Ben Ayed said. “I enjoy having an excellent relationship with my students and colleagues in the College of Engineering. I feel delighted when I get the feedback from the students that we are changing their life, making them passionate about engineering fundamentals and applications and preparing them to be competitive in the job market.”
Currently, Ben Ayed is investigating topics such as theoretical and practical techniques to reduce energy consumption in heating ventilation and air conditioning systems for open spaces using computational fluid dynamics and reduced-order modeling.
“The building sector consumes almost 40% of all energy produced in the United States,” she said. “So even small energy saving contributions will be important towards decarbonizing the built environment.”
Additionally, Ben Ayed is working on thermal design of efficient fixed-wing drone flight performance and integration and optimization of renewable energy technologies such as solar thermal devices and wind turbines at the residential scale.
“With my students, I have been trying to work on improving energy efficiency in some campus buildings by analyzing the thermal consumption and giving recommendations for reducing energy use and consequently reducing the carbon footprint,” she said.