New faculty spotlight: Matthew McCrink

Eleven new faculty members start their careers in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering in the 2022-2023 academic year. One of these new faculty is Matthew McCrink, who will be an Assistant Research Professor beginning autumn semester 2022.

McCrink grew up in Boise, Idaho, and since he saw the SR-71 land at the Air Force Museum for retirement, an experience that is still burned into his memory, he has been obsessed with flight. From there, he had great teachers which fed his obsession throughout high school, as well as his undergraduate degree and research at Boise State University.

He attended Boise State University for his undergraduate and master’s degree in mechanical engineering, and The Ohio State University for his Ph.D. in aerospace engineering.

“My field is aerospace engineering, and to quote test pilot Elliot Seguin, ‘Planes are cool!’,” he said. “I’ve been singularly focused on flight for as long as I can remember, and through great teachers and mentors, finally connected the dots from my love of flight and vehicle design to aerospace engineering.”

Additionally, this is not his first role as an educator. Along the way, McCrink has taught mechatronics, fluid mechanics, experimental methods for aerospace engineering, and experimental projects.

McCrink was brough to Ohio State for his Ph.D. by Jim Gregory, his Ph.D. advisor. McCrink said that he and Gregory shared a passion for flight and that Gregory allowed him to pursue his dream of developing unique autonomous flying vehicles.

His research focuses around bringing fundamental aerodynamic and autonomy research to flight test. This requires building teams to solve the many systems integration challenges associated with designing and building complex vehicles, and the avionics subsystems to make them fly.

“The impact of this research is in enabling new and unique aerospace vehicles, and the supporting infrastructure to allow them to safely integrate into the national airspace system,” he said. “My goal is to develop a highly interdisciplinary lab to address the wide array of challenges encountered in designing new aerospace vehicles.”

In his new position, McCrink wants to build new capabilities at the Aerospace Research Center and take advantage of the size of Ohio State to reach out to researchers in other disciplines to build diverse teams to address the challenges associated with flight testing of new and unique vehicles.

“This position is my dream job,” he said, “I am free to pursue my passion for aerospace engineering and am surrounded by supportive individuals who share my love of all things flight.”

He also said that he should take his own advice that he gives to his students on test flights.

“Always keep the blue side up!”