ME-EM Alumni NewsBrief
September 2008
Vol. 4, No. 3
Greetings from William (Bill) W. Predebon, Chair, Department of Mechanical - Engineering-Engineering Mechanics. For the latest news and information about our faculty, students, and staff please visit our web site at http:www.me.mtu.edu/.
MEEM Department Chair Travel
When on travel for the Department, Dr. Predebon visits with alumni to get their feedback on our programs and their career and to give an update on the department and university. Please let the Department know if you would be available for a visit when he is in your area. (906)
487-2911.
Dr. Predebon will be traveling to the following cities this fall:
Week of November 2nd - Boston MA for the ASME Conference
Alumni and Friends: News, Accomplishments and Awards
Daniel Huber (BSME '00) spent seven months as a volunteer for the global charity known as Mercy Ships, a Christian-based volunteer organization that has operated hospital ships in developing nations worldwide since 1978. Five of those months were spent in Liberia, where he worked to maintain the hospital ship's power. Read the whole story
Professor Teik C. Lim (BSME '85) returned to Michigan Tech to address the ME-EM graduate students on October 2, 2008. His seminar titled "Modeling, Analysis and Control of High-Speed Gear Dynamics" was presented as a part of the ME-EM Grad Seminar series. Lim is currently the Department Head of the Mechanical Engineering department at the
University of Cincinnati. Professor Lim is a Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) and the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE). His numerous honors include the SAE Ralph R. Teetor Educational Award, and the ASEE Ferdinand Beer and Russell Johnston Jr. Outstanding Mechanics Educator Award. He was recently awarded the prestigious Chang Jiang Chair Professorship by the Chinese Ministry of Education to serve as an academic and research advisor to Chongqing University and to direct a research team in the State Key Laboratory of Mechanical Transmissions.
Merle Potter (BSME '58, MSME '61) received the 2008 James Harry Potter Gold Medal from the American Society of Mechanical Engineers "for making a renowned impact on thermodynamics through 42 years of outstanding teaching and through published textbooks on thermal sciences and applied mathematics, and for research on energy consumption in dwellings and industrial plants." He will receive the award on November 3, 2008 during the ASME International Mechanical Engineering Congress & Exposition in Boston, Massachusetts. Merle is also a member of the Department's Academy of Mechanical Engineering and Engineering Mechanics.
James M. Story (BSME '72), passed away on Friday, August 29, 2008 after a nine year battle with cancer.
University: News and Awards
Chris Anderson (special assistant to the president, Michigan Tech's Office of Institutional Diversity) has been appointed to serve a two-year term as secretary of the board of directors of the Women in Engineering ProActive Network (WEPAN).
Michigan Tech has been selected to partner with Michigan State University and the Mascoma Corporation in Michigan's first Center of Energy Excellence. The Center will be eligible for a $15 million grant from Michigan's 21st Century Jobs Fund. Working with the Marquette company, J. M. Longyear (who owns 65,000 acres of forest land in the U.P.) and the Michigan Economic Development Corporation, the Center plans to develop the state's first commercial cellulosic ethanol plant to be located south of Sault Ste. Marie. Michigan Tech will contribute its knowledge of sustainable forestry management practices and access to its automotive engineering labs for analysis of the biofuels produced.
The universities will each receive an estimated $1 million to analyze issues related to the availability and cost of supplying the wood fiber and other plant materials to produce cellulosic ethanol. The partnership is mentioned in numerous outlets, including CNBC and the Detroit Free Press.
The State of Michigan has authorized $25 million to build the Great Lakes Research Lab at Michigan Tech. The three-story research building to be built on the canal side of the Dow Environmental Sciences and Engineering Building will house eight research labs along with
classrooms, teaching labs, conference rooms and facilities to expand educational outreach programs for elementary and high school students and teachers. Research will focus on the effects of global climate change, the impact of invasive plant and animal species, over-fishing and the reproductive failure of native fish, loss of coastal wetlands and habitats along tributaries that feed the Great Lakes, historical contamination from mining and the impact of toxic contaminants that persist, and the effects of population and pollution on coastal biodiversity.
The story on Michigan Tech's partnership with IBM appears on The Financial, an English-language Russian financial news website. Read the article
Michigan Tech and the Michigan Tech Enterprise Corporation (MTEC) SmartZone will receive a federal Economic Development Administration business incubator grant of $3,020,000 for renovations and "greening" of the former UPPCO Building in downtown Houghton. Michigan Tech purchased the building in July. According to US Rep. Bart Stupak, the federal
investment is expected to create hundreds of new jobs and leverage millions of dollars in private investment in the Houghton area. The MTEC SmartZone will lease long-term space in the former UPPCO Building. Other tenants will include high-tech and start-up businesses. Occupants already include Ford Motor Company's IT Development Center; Gundlach
Champion, a large Midwest construction firm; Payne & Dolan Inc., an asphalt production and construction company; G&J Silt Fencing; and Weston Solutions, a sustainable redevelopment firm. The US Department of Agriculture Natural Resources Conservation Service and the Keweenaw Economic Development Alliance also lease space in the building.
Michigan Tech ranked No. 1 in the nation in terms of number of recipients of the Division II Athletics Directors Association Academic Achievement Award. The award, which is in its inaugural year, recognizes student-athletes who have a 3.5 grade point average or higher. Tech had 97 academic achievement award winners-more than any other Division II institution in the country. (Tech Today 08/26/08)
Department Accomplishments
The US Peace Corps has approved the establishment of a Peace Corps Master's International (PCMI) program in mechanical engineering at Michigan Tech, the first and only one of its kind in the nation. It brings to six the number of PCMI programs at Tech, the most offered by any university in the country. The programs combine academic study with
supervised, practical field experience and research. After completing a program of on-campus academic work, Peace Corps Master's International students serve two years with the Peace Corps. Then they return to Michigan Tech for one additional semester to complete their degree requirements. One focus of the new program in mechanical engineering will be identification and use of appropriate technologies in developing
countries. Co-directors of the program are Dr. John Gershenson (professor, ME-EM) and Dr. Michele Miller (associate professor, ME-EM). The first students will begin the new Mechanical Engineering Peace Corps program in fall 2009.
Mechanical Engineering is #1 on the list of in-demand bachelor's degrees based on the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) Spring 2008 Salary Survey and data from the Bureau of Labor and Statistics. Read the article
Faculty and Staff: Awards and Accomplishments
Dr. Roshan D'Souza (assistant professor, MEEM) is leading a team of Michigan Tech computer science student researchers in capturing the computing power of video games to forecast and simulate complex biological systems interactions and their effects on the whole system. Using agent-based modeling, his interdisciplinary team has been able to
beat a computing cluster with a standard $1,400 desktop to program GPUs to run models with tens of millions of agents-and to do it with blazing speed. D'Souza states "We are effectively democratizing supercomputing and putting these powerful tools into the hands of any researcher who desires them." GPUs have evolved into powerful processors capable of billions of color calculations every second.
Drs. William Endres and L. Brad King (associate professors, ME-EM), Donna Michalek (associate professor -ME-EM and assistant provost), along with William Predebon (professor and department chair - ME-EM) are working to develop a strategy to bring more women and members of other underrepresented groups to the department faculty. The team, which is led by Dr. Michalek, was selected by Provost Lesley Lovett-Doust to
attend a conference sponsored by the University of Michigan's ADVANCE program. ADVANCE is a National Science Foundation initiative to attract more women to engineering and science careers in academia. The department also hopes to attract more female undergraduates through an NSF-funded program sponsored by the National Academy of Engineering. With a $2,400 mini-grant from the NAE's Engineering Equity Extension Service, the department will work with experts in gender equity to attract and retain female majors. Dr. Tammy Haut Donahue (associate professor, ME-EM) has been selected to develop an interactive module for the ME Explorations for first year students.
Dr. Tammy Haut Donahue (associate professor, ME-EM) has been named a member of the National Institutes of Health's Center for Scientific Review Special Emphasis Panel.
Dr. Gopal Jayaraman (professor, ME-EM) is leading a multidisciplinary team that is building a football helmet that protects players from rotational impact, a blow that causes the brain to spin slightly within the skull causing a concussion that can sideline, debilitate, or kill a
player. Current helmets protect players from direct impact but don't offer much protection from rotational impact. The team will build and test several prototypes that mirror the protective mechanisms of the human head, earning it the unglamorous name of biomorphic helmet." While the biomorphic helmet is being built with football in mind, it could be adapted for baseball, hockey, or two wheeled vehicles. The project has recently received a $15,500 grant from the National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance and has been awarded $4,500 from the Century II Endowed Equipment Fund. Additional support is being
sought from the ME-EM Department.
Dr. Donna Michalek (associate professor, ME-EM and assistant provost, Michigan Tech) was a guest speaker at the June 2008 ASME Annual Meeting in Orlando, FL, speaking on "An Insiders Look at ASME's Federal Government Fellows Program."
Dr. John Sutherland was the keynote speaker at the "111" International Collaborative Research Project, September 26, 2008 at Hefei University in China, speaking on "Sustainable Development: What are the Challenges for the Manufacturing Enterprise".
Current Contracts and Grants
Allen, Jeffrey (CoPI, ME-EM), "Center for Fundamental and Applied Research in Nanostructured and Lightweight Materials", sponsor: National Science Foundation, total award amount: $1,544,553.
Allen, Jeffrey (CoPI, ME-EM); Naber, Jeffery (CoPI, ME-EM); "Hydrogen Education Curriculum Path at Michigan Technological University"; sponsor: U.S. Department of Energy; total award amount: $482,244.
Blough, Jason (PI, ME-EM); Naber, Jeffrey (CoPI, ME-EM), "Combustion Pressure Engine Testbed Setup", sponsor: PCB Piezotronics, total award amount: $36,347.
D'Souza, Roshan (PI, ME-EM), "SGER: Exploring Data-Parallel Techniques for Mega-Scale Agent Based Model Simulations on Graphics Processing Units", sponsor: National Science Foundation, total award amount: $109,630.
King, Lyon Brad (PI, ME-EM), "Collaborative Research: I/UCRC in Space Power and Propulsion", sponsor: National Science Foundation, total award amount: $10,000.
Miller, Michele (PI, ME-EM), "Hands-On Ability: Why it Matters and How to Improve it." , Sponsor: National Science Foundation, total award amount: $396,309.
Naber, Jeffery (PI, ME-EM); Miers, Scott (CoPI, ME-EM); "Research Collaboration with Argonne National Laboratories for Graduate Student Research in Internal Combustion Engines"; sponsor: Argonne National Laboratory; total award amount: $23,426.
Shahbazian-Yassar, Reza (PI, ME-EM), Odegard, Gregory (Co-PI, ME-EM)"MRI: Acquisition of an In-Situ AFM/STM-TEM System for Interdisciplinary Nano-Research and Education at Michigan Tech", sponsor: National Science Foundation, total award amount: $320,090.
Sutherland, John (PI, ME-EM), Gershenson, John (Co-PI, ME-EM),"Collaborative Research: I/UCRC on Assembly Research", sponsor: National Science Foundation, total award amount: $12,600.
Worm, Jeremy (PI, ME-EM research scientist) has been selected to receive three (3) new HP engineering workstations from the 3Q 2008 PACE/HP Hardware Grant. The computers will be used in the new IC Engine Educational Laboratory in the Alternate Energy Research Building.
Faculty and Student Invention Disclosures
Dr. John Beard (associate professor, ME-EM) and Jeremy Worm (research scientist, ME-EM) have filed an invention disclosure, "A realtime interactive driving aid for optimization of vehicle fuel economy".
Dr. Gordon Parker (professor & director of research, ME-EM) has filed an invention disclosure, "Coordinated Control of Two Shipboard Cranes for Cargo Transfer With Ship Motion
Student Competitions and Team Awards
The Michigan Tech Formula SAE Car Enterprise Team finished 58th out of 104 teams, at the 2008 Formula SAE East Competition, held at the Michigan International Speedway earlier this year.
Student: Accomplishments and Awards
Abigail R. Clarke (PhD student, ME-EM) was recently awarded a fellowship by the American Association of University Women (AAUW) Educational Foundation. The AAUW promotes education and equity for all women, lifelong education and positive societal change. Fellowships are awarded to promising young women in traditionally male-dominated fields. This year, 29 women were awarded a Selected Professions Fellowship. Clarke's
research is focused on the siting of manufacturing/remanufacturing facilities to minimize cost and environmental impact. Her faculty advisor is Dr. John W. Sutherland (professor, ME-EM).
Five mechanical engineering students were named to the Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Association All-Academic Team:
Men's Tennis
* Alan Parenteau (Sr., ME), Milford, MI
* Tim Viola (Sr., ME), Hancock, MI
Men's Track and Field
* Ken Gilkerson (Jr., ME), Brooklyn Park, MN
* Aaron Tetzloff (Sr., ME), Stevens Point, WI
Women's Track and Field
* Lindsay Fry-Schallhorn (Sr., ME), Paw Paw, MI
Mark Griep (PhD student, ME-EM ) has received a Fulbright Fellowship to Taiwan which he will begin on January 1, 2009. His project is two-fold, focusing on the development of nanoscale drug delivery systems at Taiwan's Academia Sinica along with studying the issues pertaining to international research collaborations between the U.S. and East Asia.
His faculty advisor is Dr. Craig R. Friedrich (professor, ME-EM).
Brad Morse (Sr., ME) found a western giant puffball near his home in Hancock. Research Engineer/Scientist II Dana Richter (SFRES) investigated the mushroom which is normally found in sagebrush areas of the western US. The species had never before been documented in Houghton County and was identified only once before in eastern North America. Richter and Morse describe their discovery in "The Western Giant Puffball (Calvatia Booniana) in Northern Michigan," published in the current issue of The Michigan Botanist, Vol. 47, No. 2.
Thomas Venturino (Jr., ME) has been awarded one of the first NASA scholarships for students in fields of study with promising applications to aeronautics. Venturino was one of nearly 400 applicants for 20 undergraduate scholarships and 5 graduate scholarships.
Timothy Viola (Sr., ME) was one of 11 Michigan Tech tennis team members to be recognized for academic excellence by the Intercollegiate Tennis Association. The ITA Scholar- Athlete award winners must be a varsity letter winner and have a grade point average of at least 3.50 (on a 4.00 scale) for the current academic year.
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William W. Predebon, Ph.D.
Professor and Chair
Department of Mechanical Engineering-Engineering Mechanics
Michigan Technological University
1400 Townsend Drive
Houghton, MI 49931-1295
Phone No.: 906-487-2551
Fax No.: 906-487-2822
E-mail: wwpredeb@mtu.edu
For more news and information about our faculty, students,and staff - please visit our web site news pages:: Department News -- Research News -- Alumni News -- Student News
----------------------------------------------------------
William W. Predebon, Ph.D.
Professor and Chair
Department of Mechanical Engineering-Engineering Mechanics
Michigan Technological University
1400 Townsend Drive
Houghton, MI 49931-1295
Phone No.: 906-487-2551
Fax No.: 906-487-2822
E-mail: wwpredeb@mtu.edu
For more news and information about our faculty, students,and staff - please visit our web site news pages:: Department News -- Research News -- Alumni News -- Student News |
