Anette Hosoi facts for kids

Anette E. "Peko" Hosoi is an American mechanical engineer, biophysicist, and mathematician. She is a professor of mechanical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). She also serves as an associate dean of engineering there.

Cool Inventions and Research

Peko Hosoi's research focuses on how liquids move (called fluid dynamics). She also works on unusual robotics and designs inspired by nature. This field is known as bio-inspired design.

One of her amazing projects created a robot that moves like a snail. It does this by making a special "snail slime" and then gliding over it.

She has also studied how razor clams dig into sand. These clams can make the sand act like quicksand to bury themselves quickly.

Another cool project involved designing wetsuits. These wetsuits use materials that copy how otter fur keeps otters warm in cold water. Otter fur is great at trapping heat!

In 2011, she started a sports engineering program at MIT. She got the idea after feeling frustrated with her cross-country bicycle during a downhill race. She wanted to make sports equipment better!

Her Early Life and Education

Anette Hosoi got her nickname "Peko" from her Japanese grandmother. She looked like Peko-chan, a girl on Japanese candy wrappers.

She studied physics at Princeton University. Later, she earned her doctorate degree in physics from the University of Chicago in 1997.

She first came to MIT in 1997 as a math instructor. After more studies and teaching at Harvey Mudd College, she returned to MIT in 2002. Since 2010, she has also worked in MIT's math department.

Peko Hosoi has also helped mentor women in engineering at MIT. She was the first woman to become an associate chair in mechanical engineering there.

You might have even seen Anette on TV! She appeared in two episodes of the show Fetch! With Ruff Ruffman. The episodes were "Gearing Up for Getting Ruff's Goat" and "Eureka is Not a Brand of Dog Food."

Awards and Special Recognition

In 2012, Peko Hosoi became a fellow of the American Physical Society. This means she was recognized as a top scientist for her creative work. Her work included studying how thin liquids behave and how fluids interact with flexible surfaces. This also covered how living things move in the best possible way.

She gave the G.K. Batchelor Lecture in 2009. This talk was about how small creatures move efficiently in liquids.

In 2018, she received the Stanley Corrsin Award from the American Physical Society. This award celebrates important contributions to understanding how fluids move. She won it for her research on nectar-eating bats.